Soft as Sand, Strong as a Hurricane
by Andoriol
Summary: Aang 'loves' Katara and Toph likes Sokka, right? Right. Well, add in a voice of reason or two and what happens? Taang eventually, set after TBR, please give it a chance to develop.
1. Prologue

"Where'd all the salt go?!"

"You already used it all Sokka."

This made the brown haired boy spin towards his younger sister, "Whuzzat? When?"

At this question, Suki looked up from the meat on the spit, "To preserve the Saber-Toothed Moose Lion that Zuko took down for you."

"Hey! He didn't take it down for me! He _helped_ me take it down!"

"So says the guy who was holding onto the things antlers, screaming like a girl," the blind speaker smirked without facing Sokka, accepting a massive thigh of meat from Suki.

Defeated, the warrior 'harrumphed' and crossed his arms, one of the now cooked thighs of the very Saber-Toothed Moose Lion they were speaking of sticking out of his crossed arms comically.

The entire Anti-Sozin/Ozai-Freedom-Squad (As Sokka, The Duke, and Teo had collectively named them in a moment of boredom) was gathered around the campfire, large hunks of meat roasting over the open flame. Dinner was an usually quiet affair tonight, the food was already cooked and being passed out, and Sokka's outburst had been the only interruption of the quiet.

It was only a couple minutes later, when the rest of the cooked meat had been handed out, that Sokka dug into his meat with a scowl.

And moments later, his head popped up, and he tried to speak, mouth still full with half chewed meat, "Ifth nah rah-"

Thankfully, his girlfriend's hand reached out and clamped his jaw shut.

"Chew."

He did.

"Swallow."

He did that too.

"Talk."

"Like I was saying, it's not right! Good meat without salt!" the admonished warrior continued unabated, waving his thigh around for dramatic effect.

Zuko swallowed, a smirk forming on his lips before he spoke, "And second prize in the trained poodle-monkey show goes Suki of Kyoshi Island and her trained Sokka," with that he took another bite of his Saber-Toothed Moose Lion on a stick.

Sokka did not like this, "Hey!"

"Yeah," and apparently, neither did Suki, "Why not first place?"

The former prince of the Fire Nation mused a moment as he finished chewing and swallowed, "I'm not sure if he's house trained." (1)

This amused everyone but Sokka in some way, from Suki, who covered her grin with a hand, to Toph, who almost fell off her seat laughing.

When the laughter died down, meaning when Toph climbed back into her seat, Sokka tried to speak again, "Ha Ha... But anyways! Isn't this like, the fourth thing we've ran out of?"

At this, Aang stopped and thought, "Now that you mention it... we are running low on good fruits and vegetables... no one's found any around the temple..."

"Ooh! You know what this calls for?!" everyone groaned, knowing what was coming from the brown haired and skinned boy, "SHOPPING!!" He squealed, clapping his hands eagerly.

Katara groaned particularly loudly, pinching the bridge of her nose and closing her eyes, as she spoke, "So who's going with him this time?"

"What?! I can go get everything myself!"

This earned a resounding, "NO."

"Wha-?"

His sister almost snarled at him, "Remember what happened last time you went shopping alone?!"

Sokka wilted at the question, "Yes...?"

She continued, not letting up, "And _what _did we all agree on?"

The warrior's face fell, and he looked down in shame, "That I will _never_ go shopping alone again."

"Exactly. Now, who's going to go with him?"

Teo held up a hand, the other still holding his meat, "I can't obviously," while the _'Thankfully' _at the end of the sentence went unsaid, though not unheard, making Sokka grumble to himself under his breath, and surprisingly, making Zuko think.

At this, The Duke piped up, "I wouldn't be any use," Sokka should've seen this coming, now they were going to go around the circle with everyone giving the various reason's why they didn't want to or couldn't go with him till they decided who had the worst reasons, and those two would get stuck 'babysitting' him as he went shopping, for the good of the group too! Zuko's sudden pensiveness remained unnoticed by all those gathered.

But, when Hadoka opened his mouth to speak, something surprising happened.

Zuko cut him off.

Now this in of itself is not surprising. No, it was what Zuko cut Haru off with that was suprising.

"The Avatar and I should go."

Everyone assembled stared at the former prince like he had grown a second head; Sokka in particular couldn't believe what he was hearing. He hopped up, waving his arms around spastically, "Are you crazy?! You two are the most recognizable ones here! And if Aang gets captured... it's game over man!"

At this, Katara decided to throw in her silver piece, "Sokka's right, it's far too dangerous."

The banished prince held up his hands to stave off any further questioning of his sanity, "Just hear me out. The avatar needs practice in a hotter environment than this one, and the way to the nearest town _is _quite warm-"

Katara snorted and rolled her eyes at this, "Last I checked that doesn't change the fact that you two are going to be seen by the whole town."

Zuko grit his teeth, "I was getting to that. Look, we can wear disguises, and we're only going to actually be in the town for an hour or two."

The blue-eyed master waterbender scowled, "And if you _are _seen? The Fire Nation will find out where we are."

With a scowl, Zuko retorted, "They already do! The bounty hunter I had hired to go after you guys found us, and we didn't even show our faces in town!"

Katara recoiled as if struck for just a moment before diving right back in, "He followed us everywhere! Wasn't he supposed to be the best in the business? So what makes you think the rest of the Fire Nation knows where we are? Why should we take the chance?"

"I _know_ that at least my sister knows we're here! If **he **could find us then she certainly can the exact same way!"

"Well, Aang and you have huge bounties on your heads! What if someone _does _recognize one of you and tries to collect that bounty?!"

Zuko snorted, "The avatar, a master swordsman and the prince of the fire nation. If we can't handle a bounty hunter or two... what chance do we stand of defeating my father?"

Her mouth opened, then closed, she didn't really have a good retort for that one, "I _still_ don't like it."

"It sounds like a good idea to me," Toph stretched, a belch escaping her before she scratched her stomach with one end and tossing the now clean bone behind her with the other, "Between Twinkletoes' reluctance to actually _buy_ something and Hotpants usually level head they should be able to keep Snoozles in line."

Aang rubbed the back of his head, he didn't really want to go against Katara's wishes, but Zuko's logic was sound... "Well, if Sifu Hotman thinks it'll help..."

After the usual glare following his nicknames, Zuko turned back to the group, "Alright then, if that's settled, we need to get a list of things we need to get-"

"You mean a shopping list?"

"Yes Avatar, a shopping list."

* * *

"Why are you two coming again?! I mean seriously! Having fire shoot past me was bad the first time. It's even worse the sixteenth time!"

This garnered a sigh, "I've already told you six times."

The water-tribe member of the group pointed an accusing finger at the offending speaker, "Hey! It's not my fault that your 'magic' is so hard to understand!"

"Aw, c'mon Sokka! It's not _that_ hard to understand."

The dark-skinned adolescent fumed, his reply almost childish, "Yes it is!"

Zuko sighed again, "The point of this training is for the avatar to learn how to channel the heat of the environment through his bending and so that he can acclimate himself to higher temperatures. He's learning how to use his environment to his advantage, just with bending, not swords."

It took several moments more of walking for this to fully sink into Sokka's brain, "... oh... Why didn't you just put it that way in the first place?!"

"I did."

"... Oh... right..."

The three of them continued walking for several minutes in relative comfort, with Aang trying repeatedly to get a bigger ball of flame without using greater energy with 'Sifu Hotman', then Sokka spoke up again, much more subdued this time, "I still don't like the fact that the two of you are coming with me into town. Are you _sure _that there's no way you two are going to be recognized?"

"That's why we've got _these!_" the airbending monk pointed out gleefully, holding up a pair of large hats that would put Zuko and his' faces in shadow once they put them on.

After the obligatory eye roll, this garnered further protest from the warrior, "There's still a good chance you two could be spotted."

Zuko almost snorted, his voice coming out louder than he intended, "We're just getting some supplies," he forcefully softened his tone before continuing, "We'll be in and out in an hour, two at most."

At Sokka's unconvinced look, Zuko turned and glared at him, "Last I checked, you aren't allowed to go shopping alone."

The water-tribe boy wilted, then pulled himself back up for another try before they got too far away from the temple, "But why do _you two_ have to come?"

Unfortunately for him, Aang spoke up, raising a finger in the air even as he put the hats into the pack on his back, "Because too large of a group would attract attention, so we limit the shopping crew to three people. And this is the perfect opportunity for me to train in a hotter environment!"

"Rote memorization, nice."

"Thank you."

With that, Sokka sighed in defeat, now he had to endure the two day trip to the town with flaming balls of fire flying past his head. And with that, he stuffed his hands into his pockets and grumbled to himself, "Stupid jerkbending."

* * *

Aang collapsed, his back making a solid _'thud' _as it hit the packed dirt, "Ooooooh..." at the sound that came from his mouth he winced, that groan was usually only reserved for Toph's earthbending training, this was the first time that Sifu Hotman had pushed him _that _hard.

"The campfire could've been better, but it'll do," this elicited another groan from the prone avatar.

With that Zuko pulled the beginnings of dinner from his pack, seeing as he was the only one of the three of them that could cook at all; a remnant of the time that he and Iroh were refugees.

"You brought the meat right?"

"Yes Sokka, I brought the meat."

"Good, no meal is complete without meat!"

Zuko sighed and rolled his eyes, sometimes it was hard to believe that the water-tribe boy was almost as old as himself... Oh who was he kidding?! It was almost _always_ hard to believe that!

He took the several minutes to set up Sokka's hunk of meat on a stick and Aang's shishcabob of various veggies over the fire, then sat down beside his still prone student, "This is why you have to do this, we've only been doing some light exercises and you're still completely worn out. I know that you've been working on your stamina with Ms. Bei Fong-"

Aang immediately raised an arm and corrected his Sifu tiredly, "She doesn't like being called that... It's Toph, just Toph... or Toph, the Greatest Earthbender... but not that... she hates that..." he trailed off.

Zuko considered addressing the issue, but decided to let it be, "My point is, you definitely need to work on your ability to tolerate heat and work in it. So rest up, we're going to do even more work tomorrow."

_"Oooooooooooh..."_

* * *

A.N.): Okay, several things to talk about here. First, I'm sorry about the delay on The Wounded Hero, my 360 died on me when I was going to start working on the fanfic again, I only recently got it back and I'm going to update as soon as I can. Two, this thing has been bugging me to be written for a while, I finally got it on the computer and written, and I'll probably alternate updating between the two stories.

For those of you who are new to my stories: HI! This is my first foray into Avatar fanfiction. Don't pull your punches! Tell me what you honestly think.

**(1):** Full credit of this joke goes to marvel26. I love the joke, and I couldn't resist plugging it into the story when I had the chance. I just want to spread the laughs. XD


	2. Meet the voices of reason?

"Okay, let's go over this one more time."

"Sokka! We've already gone over it twelve times!" The Avatar looked at his long-time friend pleadingly, "I've got the whole shopping list memorized!"

The water-tribe boy huffed indignantly, "Well, it's still risky!"

Zuko was more than happy when the trio crested the hill, for there was a distraction from their companions incessant whining about 'schedule' and the 'list', "There's the town," then Zuko added under his breath, "Thank Agni."

It was a little after mid-day as they approached the town, the hottest part as the Avatar had mention several times, whining was a bit too strong of a word for it, but not by much. The two of them had stopped actually training with fire after lunch, they had known they were close to the town and hadn't wanted to risk being seen fire-bending.

Zuko didn't remember the town's name; it didn't particularly matter to him either. It was relatively simple, arranged around an open bazaar at the center of the town, the town was really mostly a pit-stop at the edge of the desert.

The trio knew exactly where they were headed, to the marketplace/bazaar at the center. It took only a couple quiet minutes to reach the town once over the hill. And as they walked through the main road in the town, Zuko took note of the number of hotels and considerable amount of people in the relatively small town, definitely a traveler's stop.

Sokka had already been to the town, but this was the first that Aang and Zuko had seen of it. While the Avatar was looking around excitedly despite his mild exhaustion, hat tied tightly on his head and covering his arrow; Zuko was only glancing around carefully with his good eye, keeping his head down to keep his face in as much shadow as possible.

When they reached the bazaar, something caught both of the older boy's eyes, a wooden structure in the center of the rough circle of stalls.

A message board.

Their gazes met for a moment, Sokka glanced over at it and the small number of people around it once before bringing his gaze back to Zuko's. An unspoken agreement passed between them, and, pulling his hat lower on his face, Zuko walked over towards the board.

"Hey Sokka! Look! Fresh… leachy… nuts? Huh? Where's-?"

The older boy elbowed Aang, "Shhh. Exnay on the amenay."

"Oh, right. Still…" the Avatar glanced over at the former prince of fire.

"He's going to check to see if there's new stuff on us, see if Katara was actually right about there being a problem and all that…"

"Oh. Right."

* * *

I strode into the shadow of the message board, keeping one hand on my hat and the other on the hilt of my broadswords even as I scanned over the various wanted posters and announcements with my good eye.

There was a full body wanted poster for the Avatar, a newer one that had him in the clothes he had worn on the Day of Black Sun and the newer version of his glider. And apparently an even higher bounty, it was 10,000 gold pieces now, a good thousand more than before.

Unfortunately, there was one for me as well, though it only had my face from the front and a profile. It had likely been put up with the Avatar's. It surprised me to see that my father had posted a bounty on my head for nearly eight thousand gold pieces.

But, before I could find any other posters, a harsh whisper beside me caught my attention.

"Dude! That bounty is huge! It's almost as much as the Avatars!"

'_Damn!' _The speaker was on my bad side, so I couldn't get a good look at him without giving away the fact that I had heard him. But I could still tell that the man had a hunting knife and was covered head to toe in leather armor, despite the considerable heat.

"Hn," the man was speaking to another swaddled in a large cloak with a hat similar to the one that I myself was wearing.

My hand tightened around the handle of my swords, ready to draw them the moment the two of them attacked.

"I mean, come on man! It's totally not fair! How come you get this huge bounty and I get diddly squat?"

I froze, blinking stupidly for just a moment, my hand gripping my swords going slack for just a moment before tightening again; I turned my head just a bit so I could get a better look at whoever these people were.

The first speaker, his voice still a loud whisper continued, gesturing wildly at a wanted poster, "Seriously! I've been traveling with you for almost three years now!"

I assessed the threat of this man as he rambled on, he was tall, his nose could easily clear the top of my head; but he was thin, even with the full suit of leather armor on he seemed to be only as thick around as the Avatar. So he would have reach…

"We've done plenty of things worthy of a bounty!"

I took note of the hunting knife strapped to his thigh; it was almost a full hand long and as broad as his palm. It looked to be more of a utility knife… not something you would consider fighting with. Upon closer inspection I realized that there were a number of leather water pouches hidden amongst the rest of the leather.

"How come you get one and I don't?"

He was probably a waterbender. Considering he was complaining about not having a bounty, he had to have a weapon, and hat knife just didn't cut it. So he had to be a bender.

When I realized the thought that just passed through my head I had to stifle a groan, that pun was completely unintended

When his companion's hand parted the large cloak to point at another poster on the wall, my eyes snapped to him.

The taller one gasped excitedly and snatched the poster from the board even as I finished my bit of threat assessment.

This one was shorter, _maybe _half a palm taller than the Avatar. He carried no visible weapons, but the thought of fighting him made me uneasy. If he had such a high bounty he had to be able to defend himself from bounty hunters... but...

There were way too many unknowns with him, I could assume that his companion was a waterbender, but it was mid-day, and I had been able to beat Katara, a master waterbender in the early morning. I had nothing to fear from the waterbender, but the other…

I couldn't tell if he was carrying a weapon or not with that weather worn cape wrapped around him like that, nor could I see if he was wearing armor.

"Dude!" my eyes jumped back up to the taller one as he started whispering excitedly again, "I. Have. A bounty! Sweet!"

When I started to roll my eyes, the other stranger turned his head towards me, I froze when our eyes met, his gray-green eyes narrowed some, flicking to my wanted poster on the wall then back to me.

He knew who I was. Now was he going to raise the alarm? Or was he going to take me in? Wait, he couldn't take me in if he had a bounty on himself…

* * *

As Zuko walked up towards the message board, Sokka and Aang tried their best not to look suspicious as they kept an eye on their friend.

Sokka was particularly glad there weren't many people around the message board at the time, most everyone seemed to be getting lunch or moving around in the market actually buying things. Now, if there hadn't been _anyone _near the message board, Sokka might've considered just going around shopping, but as it was, there was **way **too great of a risk that Zuko would be recognized if a wanted poster of him was up there.

Everything seemed to be going just fine with Zuko up there looking over the posters and messages, but when the prince suddenly tensed, Aang and Sokka both did the same. Sokka's hand going to the handle of his sword even as Aang gripped his staff all the tighter.

When the prince looked over at the only others at the message board, Sokka nudged Aang and jerked his head slightly in the former prince of fire's direction. At the airbender's nod, the two fo them started walking towards their companion.

There were only two other people at the message board other than their friend, one tall and thin, the other short and cloaked. Sokka noted a large, bone-white container between them.

As they approached, they could hear the taller of the two men near Zuko whispering excitedly, "Dude! This is totally awesome! I mean, I _finally _have a bounty!"

At this, the pair of old friends stopped, all thoughts of fighting their way out of a town full of bounty hunter's after them blown out of their heads for just a moment, "Uhhh..."

"There they are!"

But that didn't last too long.

The entire group at the message board turned to find almost twenty fire-nation solders running down one of the four main streets leading to the Bazaar.

"Fire!"

The front line of solders leapt forward and threw out a fist, their fireballs fusing into a wall of fire sent streaming at the group.

Aang started to raise his staff, Sokka and Zuko began to draw their swords, but the tall stranger flew into motion, spinning around and throwing out his palm. A gray stream of distorted air blasting forth and blasting a hole in the wall of fire before it passed them.

In the moments it took for the members of the Gaang to ready their weapons, the flames passed harmlessly around them, the trio staring at the taller of the duo.

Sokka blinked in confusion, "You're an airbender?!"

"No, I'm really-"

"Fire! Fire! Burn them to the ground!"

They all turned to find another squad of firebenders running down another one of the streets, and as they readied to send a wave of fire at the group, the cloaked one spun around towards the firebenders, gripping his cloak and flaring it out, sending a dust cloud flying into the air around them, "Talk later! Run now!"

Zuko heartily agreed, taking off into the dust cloud back the direction they had come from. Soon followed by Aang, Sokka, and the man in leather armor.

The four of them flew through the streets, dodging pedestrians as they ran, Zuko and Sokka struggling to keep up with the taller man's long strides, and Aang's innate speed. The shorter man soon caught up to them, the white container strapped to his back over his cloak.

Sokka shouted out, holding his sword tightly as they ran, "Who are you guys?!"

The thin and tall guy smiled, "Name's Zak! My buddy's Shi-Zen, what about yo-?"

He was cut off when a hotel exploded as they ran by, the five of them skidding to a halt as a massive form stalked out of the dust.

"Oh CRAP!" various comic expressions of disbelief and shock ran across everyone's faces, Zuko and Shi-Zen's mostly covered.

The mountain of a man breathed in deeply as the group dashed away, a seeming beam of force shooting from the man's forehead as he exhaled forcefully, making the ground where they had just stood explode.

"It's Sparky Sparky Boom Man!"

"You guys named him that too?!"

"Duh! What else would you call him?" Zak looked at Sokka curiously even as they ran for their lives, the subject of their conversation pounding along after them.

"Uh, what about Combustion Man?"

Zak seemed to ponder this as he ran, "Hmmm..." he turned to his companion beside him, "What do you think Shizzy?"

The ground behind them exploded, "Doesn't suit him."

"Argh!" Zuko almost screamed at their stupidity, "That's _not _his name! His name is-"

As the former prince of fire spoke, 'Combustion Man' breathed deeply, and Shi-Zen reacted; the short man reached up, grabbing his hat and did a spinning leap, throwing the almost disc-like hat at the bounty hunter. The hat intercepting the bounty hunter's explosive beam, detonating it prematurely and cutting off Zuko.

Shi-Zen skidded to a halt, facing the bald man as he plowed his way through the dust and smoke, "Go! I'll hold him!"

Sokka, Aang, and Zuko skidded to a halt, "What?! Are you crazy!?"

"Don't stop!" Zak grabbed the two older boys collars and began dragging them off, "He didn't say he'd beat him! He said he'd hold him off! Now run! Run like the wind!"

The Avatar saw the intelligence of this statement and took off after them, kicking up a cloud of dust behind him.

The four soon reached the edge of the town, Zak finally letting go of the two older boys, and letting them put away their swords, "Which way?!"

Aang opened his mouth to speak, but his Sifu covered it quickly, leaning over and whispering to the Avatar, "I don't know if we can trust them enough to lead them straight to the group."

Bouncing on the balls of his feet, the thin man spun back towards them, obviously not having heard Zuko's whisper, "Well?! Shi-Zen can only hold Sparky Sparky Boom Man so long! Especially with those solders coming soon! Which way are we going?!"

Zuko pulled away from Aang and pointed past Zak, a couple degree's of of the direction of the Western air temple.

"The Air Temple! Gotcha!" Zak nodded with a smile, then turned towards Zuko again, "You're a firebender right?"

At the prince's stuttered and surprised yes, Zak simply said, "Good, hold on." The taller young man grabbed Zuko's arm and ran several feet off to the left before jumping, the ground beneath him almost exploding and sending him (and his royal cargo) flying into the air in a might leap.

It took Aang a couple seconds to shake off the surprise before he unfurled his new glider and grabbed a hold of the wings, "Sokka, hop on!"

* * *

I almost didn't believe the guy when he said he wasn't an airbender, but now, as I flew my glider through the air after him with Sokka on top, I did. He was somehow using mist to launch himself into the air with each leap, and then pulled it after him, condensing it back into water to cushion his landing and launch himself back into the air.

A grin spread on my face at where Sifu Hotman was, piggy-back riding on the much taller Zak.

Eventually, when Zak landed, he didn't launch into the air again. I was able to circle down to the ground beside him in time to see Zuko clamber off his back and watch him bend a good bit of water into various pouches placed all over his body.

The loud _-whump- _of Sokka hitting the ground beside me with a scream made me look over. He raised a hand from his place face-first in the ground, "Aang... don't land like that again please? You lost me on the dive."

"Oh, sorry," I knew I didn't _sound _apologetic, but there were other things to worry about.

"Okay," I retracted my staff and pointed it at our new companion, "How do you know about the air temple?"

"Oh, that's easy, it's pretty famous, Shizzy and me were headed there anyways."

This got Sokka's attention, "What?!"

And Zuko's, "Why?!" my Sifu took a hold of Zak's shoulder and turned him so that Zuko could glare at him.

The leather clad bender held up his hands defensively, "Easy! Easy. We had heard that the Avatar was still alive, so we were coming to offer you guys our help."

Sokka held up a finger, using his serious voice and face, "Wait, what makes you think that we're with the Avatar?"

Zak pointed a finger at me, though he looked straight at Sokka, "Arrow and airbending, last I checked, that meant he was the Avatar."

I smiled sheepishly even as Sifu Hotman and Sokka glared at the tall bender for a long moment. Then Sokka grabbed Zuko and me and dragged us off to the side in a huddle, whispering to us, "What do you guys think? Is he telling the truth?"

"I dunno, I think he is, but he could just be a good liar."

Sifu Hotman gave his opinion, "I'm not sure, but I think he's telling the truth, I'd be willing to risk bringing him and his buddy to the temple so that Ms. Bei Fong-"

I held up a finger to correct my Sifu, "Toph."

"... so that _Toph_ can tell for sure whether he's lying or not."

We all looked back at the tall bender, who had sat down cross legged on the hot dirt and was cleaning an ear out with his pinky with a bored expression on his face.

Then we put our heads together again, Sokka speaking up, "Alright, we trust him for now then?" he glanced at Zuko and I for confirmation, "Okay, break!" he clapped his hands together, getting weird looks from Zuko and I.

I could almost see the sweat roll down the side of his face, "Sorry."

The trio walked up to Zak, Sokka taking the lead, "Okay, we'll take you with us, but we've got our eyes on you!" he pointed his finger threateningly at the sitting bender, whose head still came almost up to Sokka's shoulder.

With a grin, Zak popped up from his place on the ground, "Great! Now we've just got to wait for Shizzy to catch up!"

"Uh... about that..." the Avatar scratched the back of his head, "Are you actually sure he'll be able to catch up with us? Our entire group could barely escape Sparky Sparky Boom Man... what makes you think that your friend can?"

"He's done it before. Shizzy'll just defend himself and put himself in between us and Sparky Sparky Boom Man, when he thinks he's given us enough time to escape, he'll just sink into the ground and follow after us."

Sokka looked up at Zak skeptically, "How would he be able to track us?"

"He knows how to follow after the indentations my jumps make."

The trio exchanged a glance, excluding the tall bender, before Zuko spoke up, "How long till he catches up?"

Zak thought about his answer for a moment, glancing at the sun to gauge the amount of time that had passed, "I'd say a couple minutes, maybe ten or so."

Five minutes later, the four of them were sitting down in a rough circle, or square depending on how you looked at it, when Aang looked over at the considerably taller young man next to him, "Uh, Zak?"

"Hm? What is it?" the bender stopped fiddling with his gloves and turned towards Aang.

"How did you do that stuff back there? You're a waterbender right? So how did you airbend? I thought only I could bend more than one element..."

"I told you before, I'm not an airbender, I _can't _airbend. What I was doing back there was _steam-_bending, it's like... the opposite of bending water into ice. It's one of the reasons Shizzy and I wanted to try and join up with you, we both bend our elements in a sorta funky way."

Zuko spoke up, "So you think that you can teach the Avatar more about waterbending?"

Zak nodded, "And Shi-Zen can teach him more about earthbending-"

"I got it!" Aang grinned wildly, "When he was throwing up the dust and stuff he was bending the dirt into the air! I never thought to use _earthbending _like that!"

The Avatar, about to continue, stopped, his bald brow furrowing some, "Wha-?" His head turned back to the direction of the town.

Hands went to hilts of weapons all around, "What is it?"

"I... it feels like there's a fish leaping towards us through the dirt..."

This made Zak relax immediately, "Oh, that's just Shi-Zen."

The confused looks he got made the leather-covered bender open his mouth to try and explain, but he closed it and shook his head, "You'll see."

With that, the four of them turned to look in the direction of the town, waiting patiently to see what in spirits name their newest companion was doing. They didn't have to wait long, Aang couldn't feel the vibrations through the ground half as far as Toph could, and apparently Shi-Zen was moving pretty fast.

The cloaked earthbender was leaping from the dirt and diving back beneath it, reminding Sokka of the dolphins that had occasionally came close to his home at the South Pole, only with dirt instead of water...

With a final leap, the cloaked bender landed in front of the group with a solid _boom _as his feet hit the ground. The bone-white container held in a hand by one of the various straps attached to it.

He shook himself off just a bit, dust seeming to fall out of a number of places, then he swept his eyes over the group, "You three trust us enough to let us tag along?"

"Yep," Aang smiled at the man as the group stood up.

"Wow..." the cloaked bender tossed the container to his considerably taller friend, who caught it with a grunt, then strapped it onto his back, "Thank you, we'll try not to betray that trust."

"**And** to make ourselves useful!" Zak grinned some, "Now, uh... which way to the temple?"

* * *

A.N.): And that's the end of the second chapter! Yes, those two are OC's, but I'm going to try _very _hard to make them _Original _characters, and not Mary Sues. Please bear with me! This story will take time to develop...

Demetria912: Thank you, I had to rack my brain for a good yet different way to get the story rolling in the direction I wanted, it looks like it worked.

theupdaters: Hey! You never asked for permision to even court the story! Give it back! (though seriously, thank you... I still want my story back from the honeymoon right now though)

AvatarAiris: Thanks, Sokka makes my job of injecting humor and life into the story much easier actually, I can use his spontenaity to my advantage, which I do .

Moocow: Whoever you are, thanks, though I think this story _will_ end up Zutara, I try very hard to keep the character's **in **character. So any romance is going to take a while to develop.

TVMaster2000: Thank you for the constructive criticism, but there's sorta a reason for that. I couldn't just jump into what the summary talks about without some development, and I can't think of a better summary that doesn't scream OCs! at the reader, and I'll be honest, most people wouldn't even give the story a chance if they knew it had OCs, so I tried to avoid mentioning them. The story is Adventure/Humor for a reason, 'cause I can't write very good romance and 'cause it will take a while for the romance to show up.

Anyways! Reviews are appreciated! Constructive criticism is loved! Be honest and harsh if you have to to express your thoughts.


	3. Who's the best earthbender of them all?

"So how close are we?" Zak practically bounced along beside the rest of the group, only many times more energetic.

Zuko took another look around before replying, "It should only be a little bit longer actually…"

"Ooh! If it is, then we won't even have to camp! Sweet!"

This made both Shi-Zen and Zuko roll their eyes at their overly energetic companion. They had been walking for several hours after escaping Sparky Sparky Boom Man, the sun was getting low in the sky, but Zuko hadn't lied, they _were_ only a few minutes away from the temple.

Zuko had kept his eye on their newest companions, part of him wanted to trust them, but he couldn't bring himself to trust someone unconditionally.

Zak, the tall one, was more energetic than even the avatar, thankfully he hadn't tried to chat them up the entire trip, but he had been almost bouncing along the entire time. He sorta reminded Zuko of Ty Lee, just without the overly affectionate nature and air-headedness…

The other one, Shi-Zen, had remained quiet during the several hours, taking strong steps across the hot sand and dirt. Zuko still wasn't able to pin down much of anything about the shorter of the duo; he had yet to move that cloak out of the way, so the prince couldn't tell whether he was carrying a weapon or not, yet he was reasonably certain he had to be a good bender to survive against Combustion man.

"Found the tunnel!"

The Avatar's joyous exclamation dragged Zuko from his musings, and the former prince walked over as the monk moved the bush aside, revealing the tunnel that Toph had made.

Sokka walked in first, soon followed by Zak and Shi-Zen, Zuko immediately got in line behind them and let the Avatar trail along in last. Just because they were supposed to trust them enough to bring them here didn't mean that Zuko had to trust them _completely._

* * *

The sound of footsteps coming down the tunnel made Katara look up from the dinner she was stirring over the fire. Who could be coming down the tunnel... only Aang, Sokka and Zuko were up top and they should've taken two, maybe three more days to get here...

She slowly pulled the spoon up out of the soup, fully ready to use the dinner as bending material if neccessary, but at the sight of her brother coming down the tunnel, she relaxed some. However, the tall man behind Sokka made her tighten her grip on the spoon once more.

The waterbending master immediately sized him up, he was almost an entire head taller than her brother and thin, thinner than Aang. He had a full suit of thick, yet fitted leather armor with various buckles and straps to hold the pieces together and in place. His hair was a short, dirty blonde, les haphazard than Aang's was when they were hiding in the fire nation. She took note of several leather water pouches hidden amongst the rest of the dusty brown leather; a hunting knife at his belt; and a strange, large, white container on his back.

Another stranger came out of the tunnel only moments later, this one was considerably shorter, probably not much taller than Aang actually. She could only see the top half of his face and his bare feet because of his cloak which had a high wrap-around collar, he probably had to pull that thing on over his head. He had it closed so she couldn't tell much about what he was wearing.

"Alright, this is where we camp in the temple, that's Katara," Sokka was obviously talking to the two strangers, and gestured back and forth between her and the two newcomers, "Katara, Shi-Zen and Zak, Shi-Zen and Zak, Katara."

Zak bounced over to the still sitting Katara and grabbed her hand with both of his, shaking it enthusiastically with a large grin on his face, "Hi! I'm Zak! I'm a steam-bender, well, really a water-bender but I mostly bend steam, what about you?"

Katara dropped the spoon into the soup, blinking confusedly at the tall young man, "Uh..."

"Zak."

At the soft-spoken word from his friend, the tall young man blinked and flushed a little bit, letting go of Katara's hand, "Sorry, Shizzy's always telling me not to do stuff like that to people we don't know and want to make a good impression on..." he scratched the back of his head.

The shorter one came up to the water-tribe girl, giving his companion a small glare before turning to her and giving her a small bow and a soft, "I apologize, he's always like this."

"Uh... it's okay," she nodded to the cloaked young man; and after looking at her hand for hand for a moment, Katara turned to look curiously at her brother, she noticed that Aang and Zuko had come out of the tunnel and were all three waiting on her reaction to the unusual duo.

She opened her mouth to say something, but stopped when she realized something _very _important, "Did you actually get _any _supplies?" She scowled at the trio, standing up and stalking over towards them, her motherly tone coming out full force.

The three adolescents blinked in unison as they processed the question.

"URGH!" Zuko slapped himself in the face, turning to the side and shouting into his hands, "Stupid stupid stupid!"

Sokka also shouted in frustration, punching the side of his head, "I can't believe I missed out on an entire shopping trip!"

And the final member of the trio began gesturing placatingly to the waterbending master, "We're really sorry Katara! We were attacked when we got there! Combustion man attacked us! We barely got away in time! There wasn't any chance to pick up supplies!"

"Wait, what kind of supplies?"

Katara and the three boys turned towards the tall speaker to find him taking off the white container strapped to his back, the leather-clad teen looking over at them curiously.

After a moment, Zuko scratched the back of his head and looked off to the side, "Well... a lot of things actually..."

"Like...?"

"Um, well," Sokka reached into the front of his shirt, pulling out a small piece of parchment and taking it over to Zak, "Here's the shopping list..."

Shi-Zen snatched the list from Sokka's hands, and before anyone could protest, brought it up and looked it over, his eyes darting back and forth over the writing.

"Man! I hate it when you do stuff like that!"

"You should be used to it by now." After a couple seconds, the cloaked earthbender handed the list back to Sokka, "We picked up almost all of this stuff."

It took several moments of blinking for Sokka to process this, "You did?"

While Shi-Zen handed the list back to Sokka and the other three members of the Gaang came closer, Zak popped the lid off of the white container, revealing a number of fruits, vegetables, meat, and various other foodstuffs floating in water.

"We got our supplies before we went to the message board," after a quick glance at the container, Shi-Zen continued on, "Actually... I'm reasonably sure that the only thing that we don't have that's on that list is salt-"

The instant this fact registered with Sokka's mind, he cried out, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! My poor meat! It's without it's precious salt! Nooooooooooo!"

"... What's with him?" Zak and Shi-Zen looked at the water-tribe warrior skeptically as he collapsed on his knees and screamed to the heavens.

Zuko shook his head some, "Forget about him. Right now there's something else we've got to deal with."

Shi-Zen held up a finger, the shadows of his cape/cloak still making it impossible to see beneath it, "Just a second," he looked at his tall friend, "Zak."

"Hm? Oh, yeah, almost forgot," the tall teen swung his arms just a bit, bending the water and the food within it out of the container, looking up at the three adolescents that _weren't _screaming to the universe at the 'injustice of it all', "Uh... where do you keep this kind of stuff?"

"Oh! Over here," Katara ushered the other waterbender over to the various jars and sacks they used for storing food, where Zak bent the foot out of the water bubble, dropping them onto a piece of cloth.

He seemed to hesitate with the water, and he looked over to Shi-Zen as the shorter man picked up the container, "What should I do with the water?"

"Pitch it."

"B-B-But, but..." he looked at the sizable water bubble suspended in the air in front of him before looking back to his buddy, "But this water went with us through the entire desert, and the town, and the really dry area we just went through... it's gone with us so far?!"

"It's water."

"But-"

"It's water."

_"But-"_

"It's _water._"

_"**But-**"_

"Zaaaak."

The waterbender blinked, then swung his arms in towards himself quickly, causing the water to spiral in on itself and disappear into the air.

"Better." The shorter member of the duo threw the container over his shoulder and headed back towards the tunnel.

Zuko caught Shi-Zen's shoulder as he passed, "Hold up, where are you going?"

The shorter boy met the former princes gaze steadily, "To get salt."

Sokka perked up immediately, stopping his continuous moaning and complaining for a moment, but Aang scratched the back of his head, "Uh, Combustion Man is probably still in town..."

"I'm not going to town," Shi-Zen turned to look at the Avatar as he continued, "An earthbender can find salt in the ground if they know where and how to look, besides, I have something else to get," he then slipped out of Zuko's hold and walked into the tunnel.

"Uh... sorry, he sorta does things like that every now and then..."

"What? Disappear without much of an explanation?"

"Yeah, that."

Just as the Zak finished his sentence he found himself spinning till he was waist-deep in the stone, "Whoa... I thought Shi-Zen had left..."

"Okay, where'd this guy's buddy go? Or did Sparky already incinerate him?" the loud question came from the shortest, and arguably, greatest earthbender, Toph.

The blind girl walked straight up to the entrapped form of Zak, still having to reach up to flick him in the head, earning a small cry of 'Ow!' from him. She was accompanied by Suki, Hadoka, and Haru. The blind girl had felt her friends arrive early, as well as the two newcomers. Just in case, she had gathered everyone else who could fight to (In her own words) come save Twinkletoes and Snoozles... and Sparky if the opportunity presented itself.

"What was that for?!"

With a nod that amounted to a small smile for Zuko, he said, "Good, we were just about to look for you."

"We were?" the others of the shopping trio questioned.

Zuko rolled his good eye, "Yes, we were going to check whether these two were telling the truth or not."

"Oh... right," Sokka scratched the back of his head, embarrassed that he had forgotten.

Zak looked at the girl that stood in front of him, "Huh? Is she really good at telling whether people can tell the truth or something?"

The girl being spoken about brought her arm up quickly, pointing her finger threateningly at Zak, a smirk on her face, "I _always _know when someone's lying. So don't even think about it."

"Okay," the trapped waterbender sounded positively cheery.

Not much later, the Gaang had gathered around the still trapped waterbender, Toph standing nearby as the interrogation started.

Sokka started it off, "Okay, do you have any intentions of trying to hurt, capture, or otherwise make it harder for Aang to defeat the fire lord?"

"Nope."

"Truth."

Then Zuko piped up, almost accusingly, "What about your friend?"

"He's got a bounty almost as high as Aang's, he's been fighting the Fire Nation for years, and he's the one who suggested that we try and help you guys..." Zak shook his head disbelievingly, "I really don't think he would even consider doing any of that stuff."

"Truth."

"What makes you think you can help us?" this time it was Katara asking the question.

"Shi-Zen and I bend our elements in an unusual way. He's an earthbender and I'm a waterbender, but we've ended up developing unusual bending forms for out elements. We were thinking that we could teach the Avatar how to, or at very least teach those traveling with him."

At the curious expressions on almost everyone's faces, he continued, "Well, for example, I'm more of a steambender. Technically I'm a waterbender, but more often than not, I bend the water into steam," he waggled a gloved hand in the air, little wisps of steam coming from the seams in the glove, "You know... the hot stuff."

This got Katara's attention, "Wait... How good are you exactly?"

Zak's brow furrowed in thought, "I've never actually met another waterbender, so I don't really have anything else to compare myself to... but Shi-Zen has, and he says I'm actually pretty good..."

Aang looked over at Toph, who shrugged, "It's been truth so far."

So the Avatar turned back towards the captured waterbender, "Well, what about your friend? Shi-Zen? What does he do that's so unusual?"

"He's a sandbend-"

Sokka snorted, cutting him off, "Psh, we've seen sandbenders before, they're all over the desert," he waved a hand dismissively.

At this, Zak scowled just a bit, "I know, I've seen them too, but last I checked, not a one of them can hold their own against Sparky Sparky Boom Man."

That made Sokka be quiet.

"You see, I know for a fact that Shizzy is the best sandbender in the world. Heck, he might even be the best earthbender period," the leather-clad teen looked positively smug as he bragged about his buddy.

"Bullbear turds."

Everyone turned towards the short earthbender as she stomped up to Zak, pointing a finger at him threateningly, "You may _think_ he's the greatest earthbender, but he's not! **I'm** the greatest."

Zak raised an eyebrow, looking at her curiously, "I've seen Shizzy bend things that no earthbender other than him has ever bent."

"Oh yeah, I bet this Shizzy guy can't metalbend," Toph smirked quite smugly at the thin bender.

"But he _can _bend bone, bet you can't do that," and Zak smirked right back as Toph began to scowl.

She grabbed the front of his leather armor, pulling him up out of the dirt as if lifting a twig out of water, "Now look here Mr. Misty-" _"Hey!"_ "I**_ AM _**the greatest earthbender, and I'll prove it next time your buddy's stupid enough to show his face around here."

At that moment, the subject of their conversation stepped out of the tunnel, the container still thrown over his shoulder. When everyone turned to look at him he stopped and looked around, after a moment he drawled out, "Why do I get the feeling you were just talking about me... and that that's a very bad thing?"

Toph dropped the poor bender she was currently holding up, ignoring him as he fell face-first to the floor with a little 'Ow!'; she strode right up to the cloaked earthbender and jabbed a finger into his chest, "You. Me. Earthbending match. Now."

Shi-Zen blinked for a second before scowling, turning his gaze to his friend who was still getting up from the floor, "You were starting fights for me again weren't you?"

"Forget him," the blind bender's gaze was level with Shi-Zen's shoulder as she jabbed her finger into his chest again, "Right now you've got a fight with me."

The slightly taller teen turned back to his assailant, "And why's that?"

She smirked, "To prove that _I'm_ really the greatest earthbender when I kick your butt."

A roll of his eyes preluded Shi-Zen's response, "No."

"No?" Toph snarled at him.

"Exactly, no. No as in I'm not going to fight-"

"What?" the young girl sneered at him, her voice mocking, "Scared a little girl is going to dethrone you as the best earthbender?"

A snort escaped him, "No."

"Oh, so you're worried you're going to hurt little ole' me? Get your sissy rear in gear and fight me so I can kick your butt and say I did it fair and square. You're buddy seems so certain that you're the best earthbender alive. If you're as much of a total loser fighting as you are standing up to me, I'm going to prove him wrong without breaking a sweat."

It took a long, calming breath before Shi-Zen spoke again, "When I said **No.** I meant that I'm not going to fight you _here_. It's not exactly a good first impression to destroy the camp you'll be sleeping in."

Toph snorted, crossing her arms as the other earthbender, "Then how about this, you and me, at the edge of the forest up there in five minutes."

It wasn't a question.

"If you _really _want a fight that bad," Shi-Zen set the bone-white container down, his voice tense with irritation and anger,"Then I'm ready when you are short-stuff."

* * *

This was totally stupid.

I mean, why in the world were these two fighting?! One of them was going to get hurt. Why did Toph have to be so antagonistic? Especially about being the greatest earthbender?

I was completely willing to give these two a chance. I mean, it's not like they were Zuko or anything, they hadn't been _chasing _us for almost an entire year before trying to join up with us.

Wringing my hands slightly, I stood with the rest of the assembled Gaang a little ways off from where the two earthbenders were standing off from one another, "Are we sure we should let them do this? I mean, what if one of them get's hurt?"

"I doubt they're going to try and actually hurt one another, I have yet to see Bei Fong-"

"Toph"

"... Toph, actually try to _hurt_ someone. And since he's so interested in making a good impression, I'd bet he's going to hold back..." Zuko then added, as an afterthought, "At least at first."

I couldn't help but snort, "Hmph, since when did you become such a good judge of character?"

"Actually..." I turned to my brother in disbelief, I know he had given Zuko of all people another chance after their excursion to the Boiling Rock, but he should've been on _my _side on this, "I think Zuko's right, this Shi-Zen seems like an ass, but I don't think he's even as bad as the jerkbender here," he pointed his thumb at the scarred prince beside him.

Crossing my arms, I looked away from them pointedly, though Aang tried to placate my temper, "What they're trying to say is that Toph and him won't hurt each other any worse than you can heal."

"That _doesn't _make me feel any better," I grumbled.

"Well... uh..."

Then Haru spoke up, "They're starting."

A.N.): Yes, it's a cliffie, sorry... sorta. But here's the thing, I don't think I could reasonably draw out this chapter any further without making it sucktastic. So, I'm going to cut it off here. Please give your honest opionons on it and the story as a whole, **don't hold back. **If you think it sucks, say so, if you'd rather I'd have continued, say so. I can't get/make it any better unless you tell me what's wrong.

theupdaters: Apology accepted, and we'll see how worthy you really are... Sorry, couldn't resist.

AvatarAiris: Thanks, I'm always sorta worried when I introduce original characters, I've gotten some positive and some negative feedback on them. With any luck you'll like them even more as the fanfic goes on.

Dragonswrath713: Hey, don't forget that most of the concept of this story (and a good bit of future humor) doesn't work very well without your guy. Without him there wouldn't be a story.


	4. A Gentlemens Duel, sorta

"They're starting."

This made me immediately bite my lip and turn back towards the two earthbenders. I noticed what made Haru say they were starting, the guy who also claimed he was the best earthbender, Shi-Zen I think his name was, had unclasped his cape and was wrapping it slowly around his right arm.

He was taking his time doing this, and he didn't seem to be worried about Toph attacking him. I couldn't be sure from this distance (the closest safe distance when Toph was involved in a fight), but he seemed to be using this as a calming exercise.

I was still worried that he might get in a lucky shot and hurt Toph, or more likely, Toph would pound the crap out of him. I know I didn't know him at all, and he could be evil for all I knew, but I still didn't want to see him beaten into a pulp over something stupid like this.

Unlike Zak, the over-energetic waterbender, this Shi-Zen wasn't wearing any armor. Without that cloak… cape… thing in the way, I could see that he was wearing little more than a sleeveless tunic and a pair of cloth pants.

As he finished wrapping the cloak around his arm, clipping it into place, it resembled a loose, heavily wrinkled sleeve, he took a deep breath-

"Done puttin' on your make-up yet?"

I winced, the rest of our little group on the sidelines winced, and Shi-Zen himself obviously tensed before letting the breath out, obviously trying to relax, "Yeah, you done shaving? I think you missed a spot."

Toph was the one tensing up this time, the little girl almost inflated with rage as the rest of us flinched.

Now I was really worried, those two just kept antagonizing each other, at this rate _someone _was going to get hurt.

A silent tension slowly fell across us as the two earthbenders squared off. The two suddenly moved, and from this distance I couldn't tell who moved first.

Feet slid across the packed dirt, hands came up… and they froze, and everyone on the sidelines did the same.

I looked back and forth between the two of them, almost disbelieving. The two earthbenders had assumed the exact same stance! I'd never seen an earthbender other than Toph, and eventually Aang, use southern Mantis.

Zak suddenly spoke up, "Well that's new…" We glanced at the thin waterbender, and when he noticed our scrutiny he continued on, "I thought only Shi-Zen knew that stance… 'cause as far as we knew, no one really tries to learn from the badger-moles anymore…"

With a disbelieving look, Zuko leaned over and asked in a hushed whisper what I was thinking, for once, "Wait, _he_ learned from badger-moles too?"

The taller teen replied in the same hushed tone, "Well, not at first, but he learned from them not long before he joined up with me."

To my annoyance, before we could ask any more questions, the two antagonistic earthbenders began to circle one another slowly; obviously they had gotten over the surprise that they shared a style and were glaring at one another… well, Shi-Zen was glaring at Toph, she was just glaring in his general direction.

By the time they had almost switched positions, I was getting impatient. I knew they were earthbenders, but if they were going to fight, they could get started already!

As if bidden by my thoughts, Shi-Zen suddenly stopped and thrust one of his arms forward, adrenaline kicked in and time almost seemed to slow down as a stream of dirt and gravel shot out of the ground, arcing towards Toph's head.

My blind friend easily sidestepped the attack, and as the column of earth flew past her left ear, she thrust out her right hand, palm first; sending her counter shooting straight towards Shi-Zen. My eyes followed the cluster of pillars shooting up from the ground as they traveled, some part in the back of my mind reminded of the Dai Lee.

Shi-Zen stomped a foot back behind him to brace himself, and threw both fists forward to meet the oncoming attack. And as his fists connected with the final cluster of pillars as they shot from the ground, time seemed to snap back into place, the stone exploding into dust and gravel.

I took the beginning of a step forward, maybe to heal whatever damage had been done to Shi-Zen, maybe to stop the fight, I didn't know, and I didn't get a chance to find out. The dust froze in the air, then seemed to rain down to the ground, revealing Shi-Zen's silhouette as he pulled the front foot back and slid back into southern Mantis.

The smirks were gone from their faces, all teasing gone, and it looked like the anger was gone too. Somehow, in that one exchange, the two of them had gotten a whole lot more serious.

A soft whistle beside me distracted me from the two as they started to circle one another again, slower this time; I turned to find the whistler to be the tall waterbender, Zak. He spoke in a hushed whisper, not to me, but to the whole group, "She _is _good, not many people can dodge that…"

Before any of us could comment on this, a sharp intake of breath brought our attention back to the fight.

Toph had brought up a boulder almost twice her size from the ground, and with a throw of her arms, sent it hurtling towards her opponent.

Shi-Zen threw his arms down and crossed his wrists, sand seeming to materialize from the dust in the air into a slanted pane of dirt and sand; and as the boulder slammed into the shield, rolling along the immobilized sand and over Shi-Zen's head, Toph dug her heel into the ground, sending her energy through the dirt and shooting a blunt spike of stone straight at her opponent's gut.

With the briefest of gasps, Shi-Zen stepped into the attack, spinning his crossed arms away from one another as he pressed them into the attack. Sending the blunt spike spinning back into the ground before it even really reached him, leaving a small, cracked indentation in the earth where the spike had shot from.

Even as Toph settled back into her stance, Zuko's eyes narrowed. The stance Shi-Zen was in dragged up memories of an Agni Kai almost a year ago, it was reminiscent of the circular block Zhao used, only leaning forward. The former prince _knew _that wasn't an earthbending block.

Then Shi-Zen slid back into a very different stance than before, hands raised, body angled against their opponent, feet in a wide but high stance.

It took a second, but Aang turned to his firebending teacher, "Sifu Hotman... is that-?"

"Yeah, it is..." Zuko's good eye narrowed almost till it matched his scarred one, "That's northern Shaolin... the basic firebending stance."

"It's why he's the best."

Everyone on the sidelines turned towards the speaker, Zak once again, as he continued to watch the fight, "Shizzy knows some of every bending style I've even heard of, and some that I haven't. He's a master earthbender, who's applied a mastery of the basic airbending, firebending and waterbending forms to _earth_bending."

The armored waterbender continued as the combatants began to move again, "**That's **why he's so good. Not because he can lift the biggest rock, or throw a rock the hardest, or some other stupid thing like that. But because he knows tricks that no one else has even dreamed of."

Shi-Zen's hands moved slowly through the air, dust and dirt gathering in the space in front of his finger tips; then he threw his fist forward, a contained, sending a swirling blast of sand straight at Toph.

The blind earthbender side-stepped the blast, feeling it whiz through the air beside her, and was surprised that she didn't feel any earth outside of the ball. Then the swirling teardrop of sand and dirt slammed into a tree in the forest behind her, and Toph had to clench her teeth, the impact sent jarring vibrations through the ground into her feet, and she could 'see' quite clearly that the blast and stripped the tree of bark.

When the sound of sand against dirt reached her ears, Toph stepped aside again, feeling the dust and dirt fly through the air past her again. She couldn't afford to be distracted.

She felt her opponent's two steps that spun him around as he matched her movement, firing another blast of dirt collected from the air around him.

_'Wait, I'm an earthbender aren't I? Can't exactly set a good example for Twinkletoes if I keep dodging like a sissy airbender can I?' _

With that thought in mind, Toph speared her hands forward to meet the oncoming blast, parting the swirling sands and by throwing her arms to back to her sides, sent the dirt flying harmlessly with them. She immediately threw her arms forward again as fists, then jerked them back and threw them forward again, sending a rolling mound of dirt and stone hurtling towards Shi-Zen at her command.

The earthbender suddenly left her 'sight' when the fast moving hill was moments away from hitting him, he blinked into existence for just a second on top of the mound as it traveled, then appeared once again, softer this time, on the other side of the mass of rock and dirt.

* * *

As Toph settled back into her comfortable southern Mantis and her attack sent a ton(literally) of earth flying over the edge of the cliff a distance away, the spectators gaped at the exchange. Zak had been stunned by the amount of stone moved so easily by the blind earthbender, while the rest of the group, accustomed to this feat, were shocked by the acrobatics Shi-Zen had just performed, and the stance he was in.

Shi-Zen had leapt forward, impossibly high, did a handspring off the rolling hill, and landed softly in a stance that was _very _familiar to the Gaang.

"Is that-?" Sokka looked curiously over at Aang.

However, Zuko replied for him, "An airbending stance... yeah, it is," he recognized Shi-Zen's stance as the very one that Aang used against him many times during the days when he had been pursuing the Avatar.

"Where did he learn that...?" Aang mused to himself before turning towards Zak, "I thought..."

"That there were no more airbenders?" Zak glanced over towards Aang before returning his attention to the two earthbenders once again, who had miraculously remained still for the exchange, "As far as I know there aren't. He learned it from me."

"How-?"

The distinctive sound of earthbending cut the avatar off, "I'll tell you later, they're starting again."

* * *

As I settled back into my stance, I tried to reconcile the two **very **different things in my mind. Which happened to be an earthbender and what he just did. Shi-Zen was an earthbender, and a pretty good one I'd admit, but that was the kind of thing Twinkletoes would do!

I snorted under my breath, "And here I thought you were an earthbender..."

Now, I hadn't exactly _meant_ for him to hear me, but apparantly he did, "I am."

He had spoken softly, I doubted the others could hear him well, if at all with their untrained and almost completely unused (in Snoozles case) ears, "Then what was that little thing you just pulled there?" I couldn't resist the chance to taunt him some more, with my best smirk to boot, "A _sissy's_ flip?"

I could practically **feel **the sullen glare he was giving me on my skin, not just through the shift in his body posture; and it made me smirk even wider.

Then I got a bit more serious, I'd admit that he was good enough to deserve **that **at least, "Seriously though, how'd you do that?"

"I bent the dirt and dust _on_ me to push me along,"

_'Hm... that's an interesting trick... I'm going to have to try it sometime.'_

So with that, I stomped my foot, pulling a good, dense rock from the ground then immediately punching it and launching the stone at Shi-Zen. I didn't expect it to hit him, it was a test rock, to see if he would do what I thought.

He did, instead of meeting the attack head-on, he spun out of the way of the attack and instantly swung into those strong yet light steps that I had come to associate with Twinkles.

But something was off.

This guy's steps were missing something... the footsteps weren't as... light, weren't as... free.

I got over that pretty quick. Enough musing, back to fighting.

With another stomp of my foot, I pulled another, much larger rock from the ground; and with another punch, sent it flying at the other eartbender. Once again, he spun out of the way, this time going the other direction.

That made me scowl. What? Was he going to just weave back and forth till he got up in my face?

_'Not if I could help it.'_ I turned and reached back with my fists, grabbing all of the sand he had thrown behind me with **my **bending, _'Let's see how he deals with a taste of his own medicine.' _It was harder to lift all of the sand together than a single rock, but the ball of dirt, dust and sand still flew at him when I threw my arms forward.

But he didn't spin out of the way, he just changed direction, now instead of weaving to my right and towards me, he was going to my right. And the ball completely missed! If he had just stopped the ball wouldn't have hit him! '_What the heck?!'_

_'How could I miss?! I never miss!'_ I settled back into my basic stance quickly, turning my head to follow his movements. _'Okay, what happened... he didn't dodge, and he didn't earthbend, so it wasn't on his end. So what **made **me miss?'_

Twinkletoes always seemed to mention how I was the only earthbender that waited and listened to the earth before I attacked. I didn't know exactly how true that was, but it sounded like a very good idea right now.

Now what was off? Then I noticed something. Instead of the _-pat--pat--pat- _of bare feet against packed earth that I **should **have heard, his footsteps were making a _-psh--psh--psh- _sound, the sound of feet in sand.

Then it clicked, there was another difference between his and Twinkle's footsteps. Twinkletoes just walked, Sandy was actually earthbending with every step, pulverizing a couple handfuls of the dirt beneath his feet into sand and dust. It meant that **he **was sorta fuzzy, and if I wasn't paying attention, seemed a step or two ahead of where he actually was. I hadn't noticed because he was the **only **thing 'fuzzy'.

For a second I was worried he was doing it on purpose to fuzz out my vision, but I discarded the thought, he didn't know how I saw, heck, he might not even realize I'm blind! He seemed to prefer using sand and dust over rock and dirt, he was probably just using this trick to make more of it.

But that was beside the point, I only misjudged where he was because I wasn't paying attention.

Now I was.

I stomped one of my feet and pulled a chunk of rock the size of my head from the ground, and with a thrust of my fist, sent it flying at Sandy's head.

Sandy spun away from the 'small' rock easily, and whirled his arms around in a way I recognized from training Twinkletoes.

My reflexes kicked in and I brought up a thick pillar of stone in front of me, with a wedge shaped front. I had a couple fractions of a second to brace my hands against the stone before the small hurricane slammed into it.

The move was almost identical to one of Twinkle's, he spun and brought his arms around to each other and sent a blast of swirling air at the opponent. Sandy just sent a sand and dust vortex instead of pure air.

Adrenaline surged through my veins and time slowed down the way it always did when I fought to win.

Now, with the sand-storm like wind howling on either side of me, I had a few seconds to come up with a strategy. Throwing a rock didn't seem to be working well; pillars and spikes never worked well on Twinkletoes, and Sandy was using the same style; he was good enough that any sand trick I used to trap him wouldn't work; and a wave of earth had made him switch... what else was there that I could do...?

Wait. Throwing _**a** _rock hadn't worked.

A smirk spread across my face, I could launch a bunch of smaller stones at him in a scattered pattern, he wouldn't be able to sissy-bend his way out of that.

The smirk disappeared even as the winds died down, only seconds after they had began, _'But, just in case...'_

I brought my hands back and slammed them into the pillar in front of me, fracturing the large stone into many smaller pieces, and before it could fall apart, I pulled my hands back to slam my fists into the mass of rock and earth.

I could feel the stones fly outward just as I had planned, but I could also feel Sandy take a step forward, then leapt into the air and out of my 'sight'.

Time seemed to drag by, the weird fast-yet-slow feeling agonizing as I waited for him to touch ground again.

But when I started to feel the air around me pull in his direction, I stopped waiting.

Stomping my feet, I buried them up to my ankles to avoid getting tugged in. I could feel the churning circle of sand against the ground, and feel the stones yanked free of my bending. I didn't need to see to know what he had done, he had leapt into the air, and bent a tornado of dust and dirt around him, catching the rocks I had shot at him in the vortex.

Unfortunately for him, this time I was ready.

The sound of rushing air died down almost the instant I felt Sandy's feet skid to a stop on the ground. And as they did, I fired the four boulders that I had pulled from the ground at him one right after the other.

He swung his arms, and a wave of sand collected from the dirt and dust to deflect the first boulder. Not a gust, but a wave.

Even as I pondered this, the second, faster stone was already reaching him; he swung his arms back like a pendulum, and the wave reversed direction explosively, swatting the rock aside

The third boulder arrived a split-second after, only to be deflected with a hand as he reached out with the other to intercept the final rock.

_'Not on my watch,' _I stomped my heel into the ground, sending my bending through the ground, causing a blunt spike of earth to shoot at his gut; then Sandy caught the boulder, and did something... _weird_.

He pinwheeled his arm around, boulder still in hand, and sent it rolling right into the spike before it reached him, making the two hunks of rock explode in a cloud of dust and gravel.

"Well, just full of tricks aren't we?" Time seemed to snap back into place as he slid into a stance I recognized as one of Katara's and I slid back into my own. My voice came out mocking, but I would admit, at least to myself, I was a little impressed. He was the first to last this long without getting hit.

"Plenty..." he shifted, turning his side to me fully and keeping his arms raised. I noted that his breathing was noticeably harder than mine, and his heartbeat, while steady and controlled, was fast. This was taking more out of him than it was me.

I couldn't resist teasing him a bit more, "Oh? And how many is 'Plenty'?"

As he settled more into his stance I could practically feel his smirk, "Always one more."

With that, the earthbender began to swing his arms around, and my eyebrows rose as I felt every bit of sand and dust around us flow straight to him. Well whatever he was doing, I wasn't going to let him pull **this **trick out of his sleeve.

I pulled a boulder from the ground and launched it at him, but felt him go... upward?

The rock slammed into a column of sand, and I slid back into a more stable stance. It was fuzzy, but it felt like... like he was riding an upside-down, thick tornado of sand... it resembled a waterbending move Twinkles had told me about.

He pulled himself almost twenty feet into the air with that thing. Well, that was all fine and dandy against someone without bending like Snoozles, but it wouldn't do anything to stop me!

And with that thought in mind, I flung boulder after boulder at the foolish bender perched atop his sand. He dodged the first, and the second, the sand weaving him side to side, but he was right where I expected him to be for the third, which the sand from the column arced up to knock aside. And the fourth, and the sixth (he dodged the fifth); the seventh was thrown right back at me, which I knocked aside easily.

Okay, this wasn't working.

At the sudden lack of rocks flying at him, I could vaguely feel him pause.

The way he was fighting wasn't really earthbending, so... what if I stopped fighting it like earthbending?! Now, what would Twinkletoes do? It took me about two seconds to think like Twinkletoes (he **is **my best friend), and less than that to realize what he would probably do.

_'I like it.'_

I slammed a foot into the ground, spreading my energy out into the dirt and stone, and I started to lift.

My arms were out in front of me, lifting the earth from the ground, trembling from the strain; and moments later, when the shaking and cracking of the ground behind me began, I could feel the swirling sands supporting him, slow down.

I didn't pull a rock from the ground, I didn't pull a boulder, I didn't even pull a hill; I pulled out a mountain.

As the rock lifted into the air above my head, Sandy said something that made me grin, "... oh shit..." So, with a flick of my wrists, I sent the small mountain of stone and dirt hurtling at him.

When the mass of sand supporting him suddenly became a raging tornado, I knew he had played right into my trap.

So even as I felt the small mountain get sucked into orbit around the tornado of sand and dust, I pulled a foot from the earth and slammed it into the ground with as much force as I could muster, bending a blunt spike straight up the center of the tornado (I could practically hear Twinkletoes correcting me and telling me it was the eye of the storm).

The vibrations of the impact easily carried over the rushing sands, and made me smirk. I could hear the winds settling, and felt the mountain skip across the ground once before hurtling over the edge of the cliff; but I also noted that far less sand fell to the ground that had been in that tornado. He had carried some with him.

That didn't change what I was about to do, so I shifted, throwing my weight behind my fists and sending a rolling mass of loose rock and dirt sliding across the ground to where he would land. Even though I couldn't sense him, I knew exactly where he was headed.

The **_"AHHHHHHHH!"_** on the way down sorta gave it away.

He hit the dirt several seconds before the wave reached him, and the sand he had brought with him cushioned his fall. The sand blurred the vibrations, so I couldn't tell exactly what he did next, but the sand and dust shout out from under him and blasted a hole through my attack.

* * *

Toph glared in Shi-Zen's direction, it was obvious even from where the spectators were that she was more than a little annoyed with her opponent.

Aang's wide eyes bounced back and forth between the two earthbenders, surprised that _anyone _was a match for Toph on _any _level. Shi-Zen had matched Toph in every exchange so far, but considering that he was practically panting as he slid back into the waterbending stance, Aang knew he wouldn't be able to keep it up much longer.

When a bit of a breeze picked up, the Avatar could almost picture how this could go into history, two great earthbenders squaring off, the earth torn up beneath them, their hair blowing in the breeze-

Wait... hair blowing in the breeze?

Toph's hair should've been up in that bun, but when Aang actually _looked _at the pair of earthbenders, he realized that at some point during the fight, some of Toph's hair had escaped the perpetual bun she put it in, and several much longer strands were playing in the wind.

Shi-Zen's hair was surprisingly long and a dark brown, but the last Aang had checked, he had most of it pulled back. As it turned out though, the other earthbender's hair had completely fallen out of the low pony-tail that it had been in. Which was causing him no end of annoyance.

The breeze was blowing the recently liberated hair right into Shi-Zen's face, and it took only a few seconds of this before he stood out of the stance and brought his hands into the shape of a T, "Time out, hair issues."

Even from where he was sitting, Aang could see Toph freeze up for just a second, probably not believing he just said that, then she started to snicker.

As Shi-Zen started to mess with his hair, Toph got over her fit of the giggles enough to open her mouth to say something mocking, it just didn't work out very well. Her own her hair blew straight into her mouth, making her sputter and spit to get it out.

To which her opponent gave her a smug look, "Exactly."

Aang couldn't hear exactly what Toph was grumbling from where he sat, but he was reasonably sure he didn't want to. The blind bandit was never happy in those occasional moments her bun failed her.

When she started to reach up to rearrange her hair, something flew through the air at her; Aang leapt up to his feet, immediately ready to defend his friend. But it was unnecessary (as it usually was with Toph) when the blind girl reached up and snatched the small strip of cloth from the air with a curious expression.

"Try pulling your hair back," Aang's head snapped to the other earthbender to find him tying all of his hair back into a low ponytail.

"Why should I?"

"Why not?"

It took her a few moments of contemplation before she shrugged and pulled the headband off, letting her hair fall in a black curtain around her shoulders.

Aang blinked stupidly, he had forgotten Toph's hair was that long, she just let it down so rarely. But when she actually gathered most of her hair and pulled it up into a high ponytail, leaving her bangs over her eyes, the Avatar couldn't help but think, _'She looks nice with her hair like that...' _the slightest shade of pink coloring his cheeks.

Now, it only took a few moments for the two earthbenders to tie their hair into (or back into in Shizzy's case) place, and once they did, Shi-Zen looked up at Toph.

"Time in?"

"Time in."

Neither of them slid into their former stances, but Aang still recognized them. Shi-Zen had returned to Baguazhang, the airbending style, but Toph had lifted her hands out in front of her. Aang instantly recognized Toph's stance, and it wasn't good. For Shi-Zen at least.

Aang knew that even as Shi-Zen weaved closer to her, Toph was building up the energy for one, massive, explosive attack. That was the whole point of that stance.

But Aang seemed to be the only one to notice, glancing around at the other spectators he saw that they had actually sat back down after the little hair incident. He was left the only one standing, and he bit his lip, starting to wring his hands.

Toph moved, and Aang tensed for just a second before he realized what she was doing. His blind friend stomped her foot, sending the same dust-cloud attack at Shi-Zen that she had used against the entire earth rumble combatants.

With agility to rival an airbenders, Shi-Zen simply flipped over the ground-hugging attack; right into the massive dust cloud. And the Avatar's smile mirrored Toph's own as she walked into the cloud, arms raised.

Finally, Aang started to relax. Knowing that now, with her opponent blinded, Toph had a huge advantage.

Right?

**Air**_._

Aang heard the distinctive sound of rushing air and realized Toph's mistake at probably the same time she did. Shi-Zen had used sand and dust the whole fight, and she had just given him one massive weapon.

The Blind Bandit was knocked right out of the cloud and sent tumbling through the air. She hit the ground moments later, rolling to her feet and immediately advancing once again, throwing her arms forward and sending a rolling mass of stone and rock straight at the cloud.

In the fraction of a second before her attack entered the cloud, the dust and sand condensed into a blade, cleaving straight through Toph's attack.

**Fire.**

She immediately began to move into another attack, but Shi-Zen's silhouette was moving quicker. He threw out a fist, and a piece of the cloud flew at Toph, coalescing into a writhing ball as it did. Then another, and another, and another. Each blast using up a bit more of the cover that surrounded him.

Toph moved. Bringing up the same triangular defense that she had used against Xin Fu. Each ball splashed against the slabs of stone going out and over them, sending tremors through the ground from the force that made the Avatar wince. If those vibrations bothered _him _from _here... _Aang would bet they were giving Toph a headache.

Thankfully, there was only enough dust in the air for five of those powerfully impacting attacks; Aang could see the cracks in Toph's shield even from where he was.

But Shi-Zen wasn't done yet. The sandbender lunged forward with both hands, grasping at something only he could see.

_'What-?' _Aang had a second to realize that he had never seen a move or stance even vaguely resembling that in all of the training he had received.

Then Shi-Zen yanked his hands back violently, and all of the sand and dust that had been thrown behind Toph's shield flew straight into the wedge.

Aang could feel his friend slam face-first into her own shield, and he had already taken a step forward when she slammed back to the ground. The Avatar felt Toph kick out reflexively, and the earth responded, one of the two wedges launching straight at her opponent.

With a pair of stomps, Shi-Zen spun out of the way of the clumsy attack, and threw his fist out. Aang could hear and feel the earthbending rocket through the ground, causing the the remaining wedge of Toph's shield to explode into a cloud of dust and gravel.

Toph let out a small grunt as she hit the ground yet again; but even as she tried to scramble to her feet and the spectators shot up; Aang took another step towards the fight. And Shi-Zen kept going.

**Water.**

The sandbender swung his arms like a pendulum, left and right, bringing up a pair of short, angled walls on either side of Toph where she lay; forcing the blind bandit straight as a rod and pinning her arms to her sides.

Without pausing or giving Toph a chance to escape, Shi-Zen flowed on. One arm came to his chest and the other shot out, the small stone walls holding her spun and launched her into the air. Sending her tumbling towards the forest.

Shi-Zen was already wind-milling his arms around when Toph slammed into a tree, and the sound she made almost dragged Aang into the fight.

But even as the blind bandit slid down the trunk of the tree, the sand and dust slammed into her, pushing her back up against the tree and covering her up to her neck. And Aang's urge to protect her dimmed just a bit when Toph began struggling against the sand, trying to gain control of it.

**Earth.**

The Avatar's eyes flew back to Shi-Zen for just a second when the sandbender stomped one of his feet behind him and threw out his hands, clenching them with obvious effort.

"Hey!"

Aang's eyes snapped back to Toph, to find that the sand covering her was hardening, compacting, turning into stone despite Toph's efforts to prevent it. It took only seconds for Shi-Zen to cover Toph in almost a foot of form fitting stone, leaving only her head free to move.

Toph squeaked as the stone finished hardening with a _-**CRACK- **_The sound she made broke Aang's resolve, and the Avatar nearly flew across the ground to his trapped friend.

He wasn't aware of a sweaty sandbender almost gasping for air, nor did he notice the same sandbender pass out and collapse to the ground.

"Toph! Toph! Are you okay?!" Aang was already patting at the rock trapping Toph while the rest of the spectators were rushing around. Most of the group was running towards Toph, but Zak was moving quickly to his fallen friend.

After a few more seconds of ineffectual struggling, Toph ground out, "I'm _alright _Twinkletoes! Just get me out of here!"

When Katara heard Toph, she glanced back to the collapsed Shi-Zen and back to Toph a couple times, finally deciding to jog over to the unconscious sandbender.

The rest of the spectators got over to Toph and Aang moments later, "Dangit Twinkletoes! Get me out already!"

"O-okay," Aang scratched the back of his head for just a second, "Just let me get an idea how bad it is..." the Avatar closed his eyes and slapped a hand against the rock trapping her, sending vibrations through it and analyzing them as they came back. The blind earthbender was still struggling ineffectually, cocooned to a tree by stone as she was, Toph could barely thrash her head around, let alone bend her own way out.

The lightest shade of pink colored Aang's cheeks as he realized just how flush against her body the stone was, "Uhhh... well... Toph? I don't know if I can get you out..."

"WHAT?!" the high pitched screech of a short, irate, blind, female earthbender is **not **a mating call. Everyone winced at the sound even as she continued, "What do you mean you can't get me out?! You're an earthbender aren't you?! **_I _**trained you! So get me out!"

Aang immediately tried to explain the predicament to his trapped friend, "Uh... well... the thing is... if I try and break it to get you out, I could hurt you..."

Toph scowled at her student, and started to take a deep breath to chew him out, but winced and stopped.

The Avatar immediately went back into his worried-about-my-friend mode, "What's wrong?"

Snorting and turning her head away as best she could, Toph brushed it off, "It's nothing."

"Seriously Toph, what's wrong?"

Sokka piped up as well, "Yeah Toph, something's wrong, what is it?"

The blind earthbender relented, her voice surprisingly small for her, "The stone's just a bit too tight and I'm having a little trouble breathing..."

This sent the Avatar right back into panic mode, alternately clutching his head and pacing the few steps of room he had while biting his nails. To his people, having ones air cut off at all was a horrible thing, and it sent Aang frantically trying to think of a way to get her out.

Bumi might've been able to punch the rock and turn it into dust and sand, the guy she'd been fighting probably could've done that too. But Bumi wasn't here and (Aang looked over pleadingly only to find Katara and Zak kneeling over the collapsed sandbender) Shi-Zen was unconscious. Aang wasn't good enough to do that without taking a huge risk that he'd crush Toph!

_'What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? What do-' _"THAT'S IT!"

Aangs cry startled the sizable group around him, but not as much as his rushing right back to the cocoon of stone holding Toph. The Avatar clapped his hands together, rubbed them as if to warm them, and then began to knife his hands into the stone. His fingers striking the rock as if it were sand.

Toph had actually shown him this trick when she had first tried to teach him earthbending, and though it took a while, he had gotten the hang of it. Now it was finally proving useful! Sand and dust was trickling out of the holes his hands made as he stabbed them repeatedly into the stone.

Finally, his hands touched Toph's pinned arms and Aang immediately grabbed onto her arms, planting a foot against the tree, and without thinking it through, pulled. Using his earthbending to break the rock from the inside out instead of in.

It worked in that he pulled her free and shattered the stone without hurting her.

It didn't work in that he didn't exactly plan on having the blind earthbender crash into his arms.

But Aang, obivious to the position he had put them in, instantly began to fuss over her, searching for any sign of injury and spouting constant, barely comprehensible questions about her well-being.

Toph wasn't exactly used to such close contact and attention, especially from Aang, and her cheeks began to slowly color a light pink, "Twinkletoes..."

"Twinkles..."

"Twinkletoes."

"Twinkletoes, I'm fine."

"Aang!"

Said Avatar stopped fussing when his charge shouted his name, his hands hanging limply in the air a few inches from Toph as he blinked confusedly at her.

The blind earthbender's cheeks was as red as a tomato when she turned her head away from Aang and muttered softly, "I'm okay."

"Oh..." it took a moment for this to penetrate his skull, but when it did, Aang flushed and looked away from her, "Sorry..."

Suki decided to break up the embarrassing moment for the two twelve-year-olds, though not without a 'knowing' smirk, "Well, if she's okay, what about her opponent?"

That jarred them from their embarrassed stupor, and the group moved over to where Katara and Zak were kneeling over the still prone form of Shi-Zen. Noticing their approach, Katara looked up and started speaking once they were within a comfortable distance, "I don't think Toph really hurt him, there's no broken bones or major bruising. I'm reasonably sure that he just passed out from exhaustion, too much bending in too little a time."

After a moment, Aang looked around and sheepishly asked, "Soooo... well... uh... who actually won?"

* * *

**A.N.):** Woo! Finally got this thing done! Holy crap... this is easily the longest chapter I've ever written for _anything. _Wow... well, I'm not entirely sure how to work chapter 5 just yet, so I'm going to work on the next chapter of my Mass Effect story until I can figure something out...


	5. Getting to Know One Another

Shi-Zen awoke suddenly, his eyes snapping open as he shot up with a gasp.

Still panting, he checked his arms and neck for the bone-white jewelry that should've been there, relaxing when he found them. The earthbender's breathing slowed as memories of where he was came back to him and he took in his surroundings.

It looked like their camp, which was confirmed when he saw the tunnel he had come down in not all that far away. There was a campfire between him and the tunnel with a pot of some kind of soup hanging over it. He had begun to shift, wondering where everyone was when a voice brought his attention back to the tunnel.

"Oh, you're up… we were wondering when you were going to wake up."

He looked over to find the blue-eyed girl walking towards him with several vegetables and pieces of meat in her arms, stepping out of the tunnel and walking towards him with a small smile on her face.

Shi-Zen scratched the back of his head some as he replied, "How long have I been out?"

"Just for the night and some of the morning," she knelt down in front of the pot and set the most of the food aside, taking one of the carrots and a small knife from the folds of her outfit, then began to dice it up into the pot, "You only had a bit of a bruise on your leg from your fight, but I've already healed that."

His hand went to his thigh, remembering all too clearly the blunt spike slamming into it and knocking him flying, but there was no pain now, he wasn't even sore, "Thanks… is it safe to guess that you're one of the waterbenders that can heal people? I've heard about waterbenders able to do that, but I've never met one who could actually do it…"

A small smile graced her features as she looked up at him, "Well, at least some of what you've heard is true. Some waterbenders can heal. It's not a common ability though."

She returned to dicing up the vegetables as Shi-Zen sat up properly, crossing his legs and facing her. He watched her work for a second before speaking again, "How's the girl… Toph right? How is she?"

A snort precluded her response, "Oh Toph's just fine, the only thing you hurt was her pride."

Shi-Zen sighed, "Good…" He trailed off, his hands drifting to his lap as he watched the blue-clad girl, who returned to her work, content to let the conversation end there for the moment.

Several minutes passed with Shi-Zen growing steadily more anxious, opening his mouth several times to speak before closing it silently. Eventually, he worked up the gumption to speak again, "I'm sorry… but, I don't know your name. I know someone told me what it was, but I've forgotten…" after a second he finished, "I'm not exactly good with names…"

She looked up at him with a bit of mild surprise, even more surprised to find the young man looking at her embarrassedly instead of away at the floor. So she smiled, "I'm Katara," she dropped the last bit of a piece of meat into the pot, and held out a hand, "Pleased to meet you."

It was Shi-Zen's turn to be surprised, and after a second he took her hand, a small smile gracing his face, "Shi-Zen Jen-Fong, more than happy you healed my bruise and didn't kick me out."

Katara giggled some as they shook hands briefly before pulling back and picking up another piece of meat, "Well we couldn't exactly kick you out, one of our group knew your friend Zak."

As he pulled back as well he cocked his head to the side, "Really?"

"Really. Apparently the two of them actually grew up together," she continued her dicing of the meat carefully.

"Hm," as the earthbender pondered that, he nodded at the pot, "Any way I can help?"

She glanced up at him as she cut the last bit of meat from the bone, "Do you have a knife?"

"Yeah," Shi-Zen fished in one of his numerous pockets and pulled out a small knife, unsheathing it. As he did, the blue-eyed girl noticed just how dirty his hands were, it was something to be expected of an earthbender, but still… not something you expected of the person handling the food.

When he looked up at her curiously for her silence, Katara looked pointedly at her hands, "Wash your hands first."

"Ah," and with that, he set the sheath aside and flicked his hands, bending the dust and dirt off his hands and onto the floor, leaving them almost sparkling clean. When he looked back to her to find her giving him a surprised and appraising look Shi-Zen rolled his eyes, "Oh give me a break, any earthbender could do that if they bothered… they just don't bother. Now hand me a carrot so we can get lunch…?"

"Dinner, actually."

"Dinner, ready."

With a smile, Katara handed him one of the carrots, happily surprised at the ease which he diced it. As way of explanation, Shi-Zen spoke without looking up from the vegetable, "I do most of the cooking between Zak and I."

The two of them slid into another silence, this one considerably more comfortable than the last; Katara and him cutting up vegetables and meat quietly with the waterbender handing him the pieces to cut up when he finished with one.

They spent several more minutes like this; Shi-Zen pondering what she had said and Katara just working on getting dinner ready, then Shi-Zen spoke up again, "If the person grew up with Zak, then they had to be from the northern air temple… so, who…?"

Katara looked up from her work, "Teo."

The sandbender lifted his head and gave her a _look_, "I'm _bad_ with names…"

She rolled her eyes, "Wheel-chair, short brown hair, earth kingdom?"

A spark of recognition flashed across his eyes, "Ah, I think I know who you're talking about now…" the earthbender returned to working with the vegetable in his hands, his brow furrowing in thought, "How did _that_ encounter go?"

"Well…"

* * *

_Zak and Zuko carried the surprisingly heavy and still quite unconscious Shi-Zen between them as the group headed back to the campsite._

_Katara walked ahead of them, clearing a spot near the unlit fire, "Put him over here," the four words had the two taller boys hastening to comply, setting the unconscious earthbender down on his back. The blue-eyed waterbender fussed over Shi-Zen for several more moments, fixing his position to her satisfaction and propping his head up._

_"Twinkletoes! For the fifth time! I'm fine!"_

_"B-b-but... but you face-planted into your rock!" the Avatar gestured at his friend almost desperately._

_The blind bandit sighed, "Twinkles," she socked his arm hard, satisfied with his little 'Ow', "I'm made of sterner stuff than you are Tenderfoot."_

_As Aang rubbed his arm, he still looked over at his friend, "Still... are you **sure **you're okay? He did hit you pretty hard..."_

_"Actually..." Zak spoke up tentatively._

_Toph reacted immediately, stomping right over to the much taller bender, "Don't you **dare **and try to tell me that he was holding back! I **know **he wasn't!"_

_Zak had the common sense to look cowed, "Well... he wasn't holding back per se... he was holding back in the sense he wasn't trying to kill you yes, but... as you got to the end of the fight, his attacks were losing some of their punch..."_

_After a moment, Suki said what everyone was thinking, "So... he was getting tired..."_

_"Yeah, pretty much."_

_After the group eye-roll/groan, Zak turned to Katara, still kneeling over the unconscious Shi-Zen, "You're **sure **he's gonna be okay?"_

_She rolled her eyes, for what felt like the third time, "Yes, for the fourth time, I'm sure he's going to be okay. His pulse is weaker than I think is normal for him, but it's steady, and so is his breathing. He just pushed things a little too far in the fight."_

_"Sorry... it's just..." the tall water-bender scratched the back of his head, looking at his prone friend confusedly as he spoke, "I know Shizzy isn't exactly long lasting or anything like that... it's just... I've seen him do **way **more stuff than that and only be winded..." With a sigh, he collapsed into a sitting position beside his friend, "I wish he hadn't passed out, if he was awake he could explain why..." he paused and seem to think about this for a half-second, "But then again that would just defeat the purpose of him having to explain anything..."_

_This entire paragraph came out of Zak before any of the others could even think of a word to get in edge-wise, leaving much of the group staring at him blankly, with Toph being the exception (she just put on a blank look and didn't bother turning her head.)_

_The momentary silence was broken by an unexpected voice (at the time), "Wait a sec, no way! Zak?!"_

_At his name, the waterbenders head shot up, "Is that-?"_

_The squealing of wheels and the surprisingly light patter of leather boots precluded the massive crash as the two boys slammed into one another, laughing and grinning, Zak almost lifting the younger boy out of his wheelchair._

_Once again, most of the group was left staring blankly at the scene before them as the two boys laughed and half shouted, half asked partially incoherent questions of each other such as 'Where have you been?' 'What are you doing here?' 'What's with those pants?', the normal things._

_After a moment, Toph leaned over to the person closest to her, Aang in this case, and asked quietly, "What's going on?"_

_The best response she got was a confused shrug._

_Eventually, the two boys calmed down enough to separate, Zak letting Teo sit back properly in his chair, who spoke in a much calmer, though still breathless and excited, tone, "What are you doing here? I thought you and your buddy were traveling the world..."_

_"We are! We have!" the much taller boy gestured wildly and tried to explain when words failed him, "It was unbelievable! The stuff we've seen!" He paused for a second before shaking it off, "But anyways! What are **you **doing here?! I thought you and the others were still at the temple! What are you doing all the way over here?!"_

_The crippled boy's face fell, and so did Zak's, "I'm in for a long and bad story aren't I?"_

_"Yeah... you sorta are..."_

* * *

_"So that's what happened on the day of black sun..." Zak's brows furrowed as he tried to process the information that had been handed to him. The rest of the gathered Gaang sat around the fire, the sun now fully set and Zuko passing out tea as had quickly become customary. The thin waterbender accepted his cup and swirled it around with a bittersweet smile on his face, "Well.. all totaled, Shizzy owes me twenty silver..."_

_He didn't even look up from his tea as he responded to everyone's curious gaze's, "We'd heard about the invasion attempts through fire nation propaganda... the two of us like to keep our ears to the ground in a manner of speaking... but we knew what the flyers and posters said wasn't completely true. We tired to figure out some things between the two of us, but we disagreed on some details of what happened, so we made a couple bets on those things..."_

_The waterbender swirled his tea around slowly, "When it gets right down to it, I got a lot of little things right and one or two big ones, while he got a lot of big details right, so when the tally comes up, he owes me some money," he smiled some bitterly and took a sip of his tea before turning to Teo, "What about my family?"_

_"They're still at the Northern Temple, they stayed behind. So they should be safe..." And Zak sighed in relief, some of the tension leaving him._

_After a moment, Teo looked over at the waterbender, "So what about you, I told you what I've been doing, it's only fair you tell me what kinds of adventures you two have been on."_

_As Zak seemed to ponder, bringing his hand up to his chin and mumbling to himself 'Where to start... where to start...', Zuko's brow furrowed. And Aang noticed._

_"Sifu Hotman?"_

_At the older boys glare, Aang revised his question, "What's wrong Zuko?"_

_The former prince of fire sighed as all eyes turned to him, "Nothing's **wrong**... it's just," he looked at Teo, jerking his head over at where Zak sat and Shi-Zen lay unconscious, "Do you really trust these two?"_

_Momentarily surprised at Zuko's question, Teo looked down, "Well, I've known Zak my whole life. Even though he left the northern air temple three years ago... he's not exactly the kind of person to pick a fight, let alone betray people..."_

_"What about him?" Zuko jerked his head at Shi-Zen._

_"Well..."_

_"Teo can't really make a judgment on him." The gathered gaang turned to Zak, who was sitting calmly with his tea in his hands, "Teo and Shizzy only met for a couple of minutes, and that was almost three years ago. The two of them never really met, just saw each other... so Teo can't tell you whether you can trust Shizzy or not."_

_"Okay, wait," Sokka held up a hand, "So we're supposed to accept your word that this guy's trustworthy, when we've only got Teo's word that **you're** trustworthy yourself. No offense Teo."_

_"None taken."_

_"I mean, even if we unconditionally accept that you **are **trustworthy, how do we know that your buddy is? You could've been mistaken, or not know him as well as you think you do, or something like that. How are we supposed to trust him when there's so many what ifs?"_

_Zak took a large swig of his tea with a smile, and then, grinning at Sokka, said quite simply, "You shouldn't."_

_The sound of Sokka's (as well as a number of people's) trains of thought crashing into a massive pile of slag metal was almost audible, and it took almost a full minute before Sokka was able to sputter out, "W-w-wait! What?!"_

_Zak took another sip of his tea before answering, "If he was awake, Shizzy would give you a speech about how you actually **shouldn't **trust him for those very same reasons that you mentioned. He always gives some variation of it when someone says they don't trust him." The waterbender held up his hand, "Now don't get me wrong, I trust the guy with my life and all that but you guys have absolutely no reason to trust Shizzy."_

_This time it was Hakoda who spoke up, "So... you're saying we actually _shouldn't_ trust your friend?"_

_"Well, that's what he would tell you, and when you get right down to it I think you've got every excuse to be cautious with us," the tall bender drank the last of his tea before finishing, "But I would like you to trust us enough to let us stay. Oh, and more please!" He held out the cup with both hands towards Zuko, who gave him a blank stare._

* * *

"So, you guys like Zak so far and still don't really trust me?"

Katara gave Shi-Zen an embarrassed smile, "Pretty much."

"Good."

The waterbender blinked for a second and Shi-Zen continued before she could speak, "Zak wasn't lying, I _don't _think you should trust me right away," he dropped the last piece of the meat he was cutting into the pot and set aside the bones before holding out his hand for another thing to cut up into the soup.

Katara handed him one of the last vegies, a small onion-radish, "Oh, we knew he wasn't lying, Toph would've known. It's still surprising to hear someone say 'Don't trust me'."

"Well, you _shouldn't_ trust me right away." Shi-Zen began to dice the onion-radish, rolling it in his hand and delicately cutting down to his palm, "This group easily has the best chances to end this stupid war, but you can't afford to take any stupid chances, like trusting someone unconditionally."

"So... you don't _want _us to trust you?" Katara let the last piece of her carrot fall into the pot and picked up the last thing that needed to be cut up to go into the soup, a pepper in this case.

Shi-Zen looked up from his work, still slowly cutting the onion-radish into small pieces, "Of course I want you and the rest of the group to trust me. But I also want you all to be smart about it. And if being smart means not trusting me right away, then I can live with it."

Katara gave the earthbender across from her an appraising look, which faded into a slightly confused one when the same earthbender held a still intact onion-radish over the pot. He held it sideways and knocked it with the hilt of his knife, making the seemingly intact onion-radish fall into the pot as a bunch of diced pieces.

At her surprised look, Shi-Zen looked up at her with a small, and very smug smirk, "Yes, the knife is **that **sharp."

This earned an eye-roll and a small smile from Katara, and she spoke teasingly when he sheathed his knife moments later, "Well, mister Shi-Zen of the really sharp knife, would you mind helping out a bit more?"

With a soft and brief chuckle, Shi-Zen smiled and slid the knife back into the pocket he had pulled it from, "How may I assist?"

"I can finish this up, and most everyone will be back for dinner on time, but Toph and Aang are training on the other side of the temple..." the waterbender nodded her head in their general direction, "And you kinda pissed her off... so she's going to use training Aang as a way of venting... and, well, they could keep going for quite a while..."

"And you want me to go tell them dinner's ready."

The blue-eyed girl nodded with a large smile, "Pretty much."

Shi-Zen stood, a small sigh escaping him, "How will I find them? I don't exactly know the layout of this place yet."

It was Katara's turn to smirk, "Just follow the earthbending."

* * *

"Again Twinkletoes!"

Aang repeated the action that he had been doing for the past couple hours: _stomp_, pull up a boulder,_ punch_, send boulder spinning at Toph, _watch_ his Sifu knock it aside with ease.

"Again!"

_Stomp_, pull up boulder, _punch_, throw boulder at Toph, _watch_ her deflect it.

"Again!"

_Stomp, punch, watch._

"Again Twinkles!"

_Stomp, punch, watch._

"Again!"

_Stop, punch, watch._

Aang had already stomped and pulled another stone from the ground before he realized Toph hadn't said, well, shouted, 'Again'.

The Avatar let the stone drop to the ground and peeked out around the large rock to find his friend scowling off in the direction that the last rock had been deflected. He followed her gaze and almost jumped out of his skin.

There, sitting on top of a low wall, was Shi-Zen. That was scary enough, apparently he had escaped Toph's detection until just now, but it looked like the only reason Toph had noticed him, was the vibrations of the last boulder smashing through the wall two feet from him... and he looked completely calm about it!

"So, you here to gloat about beating me?" Toph sneered at the relaxed earthbender.

Who promptly snorted, "You have to win to gloat. I didn't win."

Toph almost face-planted in surprise before shaking her head some, "What?"

Aang however, seemed to get it, "You think you tied... since you passed out in pinning her."

"Close... but no, the whole point of that match was to figure out who the better earthbender was... it was a title match," the sandbender scowled, "I've been used to the thought of being the best earthbender, but..." he shook his head some before looking at Toph, "You're the better bender."

With a skeptical look, Toph responded, "Alright, hold on, we **tied**... I'm all for being the greatest earthbender, but..."

"What makes me say you're the best?"

"Pretty much."

Shi-Zen pushed a strand of his loose hair behind his ear, thinking over his answer before speaking, "You made _one _mistake. And at that level of combat, **any** miscalculation is enough to lose the fight. And if you had made that mistake any later I wouldn't have had the strength to finish the fight..." he scowled as he continued, "You're very skilled, _many _times stronger than me... but still several years younger."

"I've been trained by masters _and_ training myself ever since I was younger than you... and I **still** only tied with you because I was lucky..." with a sigh, the sandbender began to pull his loose hair back into a low ponytail, leaving two locks of hair to frame his face, "If you had my training... by Agni, if you were my _age,_ you probably would've won hands down."

Aang looked back and forth between the two earthbenders as Shi-Zen dropped from the wall. He could see the slightest tint of pink on Toph's pale face, and Aang didn't like it. This guy was dangerous! He had almost hurt her!

"You really think so?"

"I know so."

The pink flared over Toph's face for just a second, and Aang almost spoke up, but then Toph's face hardened and she half-way sneered at the slightly taller earthbender, "Well, if you're not here to gloat about winning, then what _are _you here for?"

"Actually, to tell you two that dinner's about ready."

This definitely got Aang's attention, "Dinner! What are we waiting for?!" the avatar began bouncing in place, eager to go eat.

"You two to show me the way back," the sandbender shrugged, "I don't know the way back, I just followed the sounds of earthbending to get here."

Toph snorted, grabbing the front of Shi-Zen's sleeveless tunic, starting to walk down the halls as she dragged him stumbling behind her, "Twinkletoes!"

With a start, Aang ran up beside his Sifu, "Yes-?" He was cut off when her other hand snapped out and latched onto his collar, dragging him along as she stomped off, grumbling under her breath about stupid sandbenders unable to remember a route and airbenders unable to get from one place to another without slamming face first into a statue or rock along the way.

Shi-Zen looked over at Aang as the two of them ineffectually stumbled after the short earthbender, "Does she usually do this?"

"Only when she's annoyed."

"So... you get dragged around a lot?"

"When we're training."

"...Sooo... you get dragged around a lot?"

"... yes..."

The sandbender snickered just a bit before almost being tugged off his feet by a sharp tug, "No teasing Twinkletoes, that's _my _job."

* * *

At dinner that night, the seating was a bit arranged. Once Shi-Zen and Zak had sat down on one side of the pot and fire, Sokka and Zuko nudged Aang to the opposite side, Zuko and Toph sitting on one side of him, Katara and Sokka on the other and the rest of the gaang sat themselves in the intervening spaces.

This did not entirely escape the two newcomers attention as Katara bent the soup into bowls and handed them out, but neither of them mentioned it when their bowls got to them.

Zuko felt like he was the only one in the group who outright distrusted the two newcomers, no one else in the group seemed to be taking the proper precautions. Aang didn't seem the least bit tense or worried about them betraying the group, Toph seemed no more alert than usual, Sokka and the others were wary of Shi-Zen, but even then not enough. By Agni! Even Katara seemed to be at ease around them! And she _still _hadn't really accepted Zuko into the group.

Well, she might have a reason to be suspicious of him, but that still didn't mean she should be so accepting of these two!

But Zuko seemed to be the only one truly wary of these two. Well, wary of the earthbender. Zak seemed too... Aang-like, too optimistic and energetic to even consider betraying them. That and he had another of the groups vote of confidence. The waterbender smiled as he accepted his soup, talking animatedly if quietly with Teo as he ate.

But his companions eyes were sweeping over the entire group in a manner that made Zuko very uneasy. He had said 'Thank You' and smiled some when his bowl of soup got to him, but the look he was giving everyone... it was far too close to one of Azula's for Zuko's taste.

The dinner was eerily quiet, usually someone would be chatting loudly, telling a joke or story, or playing a prank on someone else. But the only sound aside from the occasional slurp and the crackle of the fire, was Teo and Zak's quiet conversation.

Hakoda eventually decided to break the ice, "So, why don't you two tell us some more about yourselves?"

"Hm?" Zak looked over at the only adult present, "Oh, well... there's not much to tell about me..." he scratched the back of his head with a hand as the other held his soup, "My family left its tribe for the same small village that Teo's dad lived in at the time. I was born there... and I think I was six I think when the flood came..."

The thin waterbender paused, scowling into his soup as he brought his hands back to the bowl, "I didn't realize I was a waterbender then... sorta thankfully, actually..." Zak smiled with just a hint of bitterness, then shrugged, "If I had, I might've tried to stop it... that would **not **have ended well."

"My family went with the rest of the village to the Northern Air Temple, and I grew up there. It's where I figured out I could steambend not long after I learned to waterbend..."

"Well, 'bout three years ago, my grandpa died... and, I sorta had to blow off some steam..." he grinned at the pun, but it soon fell away to his serious face once again, "I left the temple for a bit, just to vent a bit. I stayed on the cliffs and everything... but..." he sighed, and a look crossed his face that wasn't so much sad, as defeated, "A fire nation patrol was coming up the cliffs at the time, and I was steam-bending... which looks an awful lot like airbending..."

At the collective wince that went through the gaang, Zak nodded and gave them a sheepish smile, "Yeah, pretty much. I didn't pick the fight, but they saw me and attacked first, and probably meant to ask questions later. I got lucky in that Shizzy here was already heading to the temple at the time, he stumbled across the fight and earthbent me out of there while tossing up the patrol."

"Wait," Zuko interrupted softly, "How big of a patrol are we talking about?"

"Uh..." Zak put his free hand to his chin as he tried to remember, "Well, there were two tanks..."

Shi-Zen rolled his eyes before addressing Zuko, "It was a standard caravan company, two tanks and three transports."

Zuko's good eyebrow went up his forehead at that, giving him an incredulous look, "You beat all of those by yourself?"

And the earthbender snorted, "I wish, I'm still iffy about taking on an entire company by myself in a rocky area. All I did was startle them and knock them around some in passing."

"Still... and entire company..."

"Okay, could you two stop talking like everyone knows how big a company is already?" Toph scowled into the center of the circle, clearly annoyed, "I want to know how many bad guys we're talking about here already! Not everyone here knows fire nation mumbo jumbo."

While Zuko muttered a soft 'Sorry' to the earthbender beside him, Shi-Zen sighed and pushed his bangs behind one of his ears, just to have it fall back into place, "A company is usually forty-five solders, a caravan going through dangerous territory like that one was have about twenty-five firebenders with them. Almost everyone rides in the tanks or on the powered wagons."

Toph snorted and turned to look at the airbender beside her, "And **where **was this exactly?"

"On a mountain," Aang had a feeling he knew what his friend was going to do-

She snorted again, completely disbelieving, "You couldn't handle that many guys? Only in vehicles? On a **mountain**?" she downed the last of her soup quickly and slapped the bowl down beside her, making Aang wince, "And here I was thinking you were actually pretty good."

It was Shi-Zen's turn to snort, "I only knew northern Shaolin, _some_ southern Mantis, and a _little bit_ of something you might call a waterbending style," the sandbender shook his head some and took a sip of his soup directly from the bowl to try and calm himself before continuing, "The only reason I'm good is because I know a good bit of six different styles, besides, I'm nowhere near as good with rock and stone as I am with sand and dirt. There's no way I could've taken them then and there."

Toph began cleaning one of her ears out with her pinky, "Yeah yeah, so what happened Sandy? You thought you couldn't win so you got scared and ran away?"

"No." Shi-Zen scowled at the younger earthbender across from him, "I **knew **I couldn't win, so I grabbed him," the sandbender jerked his thumb at the tall waterbender beside him, "And **then **I ran away."

This brought a couple of half smiles to the group and made Toph snigger, but Aang at very least, knew his friend wasn't going to let it go that easily, so when she opened her mouth to make another scathing remark, he cut in, "But how did you do it? I mean, fight so many people and get away with another person?"

"Oh man it was unbelievable!" That, was Zak. The question made him almost drop his soup aside and start waving his arms around, "He just flew right in on this tornado of sand and it was all like- _WHOOSH!- _and-"

As the waterbender went on with his explanation, with many gestures and sound effects, both Shi-Zen and Toph gave Aang a glare that told the avatar, on NO uncertain terms, that they knew he had interrupted their argument, and that neither really appreciated it. And while Shi-Zen's glare was sullen, Toph didn't just glare.

She leaned in closer to Aang and whispered, "Tomorrow in training, you're going to pay for that." Aang could feel a lone bead of sweat slide down the side of his head as he kept a grin plastered on his face.

"And then he totally caught them in the wake! It was so totally awesome!" the leather-clad waterbender finished with a flourish, earning him a number of confused and dumbstruck looks from the gathered group, and one exasperated one from Shi-Zen.

With a sigh, the sandbender glanced over at his friend, "Finish your story already."

Zak blinked, "Oh, yeah, anyways..." with a sheepish grin, he got back to his story, "When Shizzy sorta flew in he got me the hell out of there, but when we stopped running and actually talked, I totally gave it to him!" The steambender energetically punched the air.

Shi-Zen rolled his eyes, "Translation, he yelled at me."

With a quick scowl at his friend, Zak went on, "But, once we figured out what both of us were really doing there, we came to the conclusion that we had to draw the patrol away from my family and the temple..."

Teo was the one who spoke up in the momentary pause, "Were they there to pick up the weapons?"

While Zak looked momentarily startled, Shi-Zen was the one to reply after he winced, "Yes, they were."

"Then they were going to the temple anyways, so what was the point?" it was Aang who spoke that time.

"Hey, at the time we didn't even know about the weapons," Zak gave the Avatar a bit of a scowl, "And we agreed, that even if they _were _headed for the temple, we didn't need to give them a reason to just execute them..." the waterbenders voice soon lost the momentary intensity, "They almost certainly thought I was an airbender, so if they thought I had come from the temple, they would've methodically killed everyone there looking for others..."

"But..." Sokka spoke up with surprising tact in the pause, "Wouldn't they have thought you were from the temple anyways?"

"Probably," Zak scratched the back of his head as he stared at the ground, but then looked up with a bit of a grin, "But when they 'overheard' Shizzy yelling at me for going near the air temple and me yelling back 'I was looking for more airbenders but didn't find any'..."

Sokka caught on immediately, "They thought you were with him and that you were only passing through!"

"Exactly," the thin waterbender grinned, "And it worked like a charm, they followed us for miles before they gave up."

As Toph picked her nose in disinterest Aang spoke up _with_ a degree of interest, "So what did you two do after that?"

"Well, Shizzy had come to the temple looking for either airbenders or the pictures on the walls to get an idea of how they fought. He was looking to learn the tenets of airbending, or Ba Gua Zhang," Zak grinned even wider, "I had already learned some from the mosaics in the temple. I couldn't go back to the temple anytime soon, and I could teach him some of the basics of airbending and proper waterbending. So we ended up traveling together for a while."

The thin waterbender paused in his explanation/story long enough to ask for seconds, and as Katara bent some more soup into his bowl, most of the group absorbed what he had said.

A little later, as Zak sipped his second helping of soup, Sokka spoke up, "Okay, I think I get why _he _traveled with _you_... But what did you get out of it? I mean, you could help him learn new stuff, but it was dangerous for you to travel with him right?"

"Not as dangerous as trying to travel alone, I had absolutely **no **combat experience at that point and didn't really know how to survive in the wild. Shizzy had been living by himself on the run for almost four years by that point," Zak lowered his bowl for a second as he continued, "That, and the teaching wasn't a one way street. He's taught me a few things, firebending stances work surprisingly well with steam."

Zak returned to eating his soup, apparently quite intent on getting more food in his stomach as Sokka brought his hand to his chin and pondered this, "Hm, okay, that makes sense..."

The circle was quiet once more, though the silence was much less tense this time around. Most of them spent the time eating, Zuko however only ate a couple more spoonfuls of his soup before glaring over at Shi-Zen, who had somehow managed to fade into the background despite his integral nature to the last bit of Zak's story, "What about you? You haven't told us anything about yourself, like just **why **you're trying to learn all of the bending styles."

The sandbender's shoulders tensed when Zuko addressed him, but he relaxed before saying simply, "To get stronger," and lift the bowl of soup to quietly drink the broth.

The former prince of fire glared at the seemingly calm bender, "Yeah, but _why_?"

"Zuko!" Katara snapped at the teen, "Leave him alone!"

"Katara," her head turned to her father as he gave her a disapproving look, "Zuko's right, Shi-Zen should tell us more about himself and at very least his reasons." The chief of the southern water tribes turned to the still quiet sandbender, "Shi-Zen."

At his name, Shi-Zen sighed, setting his bowl in his lap and staring down at it's empty contents, "To help out my family," when it looked like he was going to leave it at that, his considerably taller friend elbowed him. This earned Zak a glare, but Shi-Zen went on, "They're in a Fire Nation prison, and the only way to get them out is to end this stupid war."

"When they were first captured, I thought I could get strong enough, learn enough to bust them out," the sandbender seemed to pick up momentum as he went on, "I eventually realized that there was no way that I could get them out safely by myself, no matter how strong I became, I just wouldn't be able to do it alone from the outside. Then I got to thinking that if I stopped the war they might be released," he snorted, glaring at his empty bowl and continuing in a unexpectedly soft voice, "I thought that if I took out the Fire Lord, maybe I could end the war..."

He shook his head during the pause, "It took me a year to figure out that that wouldn't work either, even if I was good enough to sneak in a kill Ozai in his sleep, it wouldn't solve the problem." Shi-Zen's mouth narrowed into a thin line before he continued, "I went through a couple more, shortly lived excuses for a season before I realized there wasn't any point."

"I didn't have a chance of getting my family out of that prison, and there wasn't a thing I could do about it. I didn't really know what to do there for a bit, but I decided to keep going, finish what I started in a way. Learn as much bending from as many styles as I could and keep disrupting the Fire Nation's war effort."

The sandbender sighed softly before holding out his bowl, "May I please have seconds?"

Half-way stunned, Katara bent some more soup into his bowl, and as he blew the steam off the top Aang, among others, stared at him.

After a couple moments, Aang shook it off enough to ask, "Y-you really thought you'd never be able to save them?"

"Pretty much," he took a small sip of the soup before returning to blowing on it.

"And you kept going?"

"Yeah."

"With no hope?"

He scowled as he took another sip, "Sounds about right," with a small shake of his head he returned to blowing on the soup.

"But how could you go on with nothing to hope for? How could you-"

"**Easy!**" Shi-Zen snapped, and Aang recoiled as the sandbender glared at him, "Damnit, life isn't easy! And reality bites." Shi-Zen scowled some before continuing in a considerably calmer tone, "It's a fact. Sometimes life just sucks, but that doesn't mean we can stop living it. I was pretty sure about that then and I **know** it's true now. Then, there was no hope. I had no way of getting my family out of that prison safely. But look at things now."

He gestured at the airbender, "You're actually alive, that alone gives me hope that the war can be ended, because people will rally around you simply because you're the Avatar. There's a _very _good chance that a considerable force can be mobilized against Fire-Lord Ozai."

Shi-Zen then swept his hand around at everyone, "And look around you, right here is a concentration of some of the strongest benders alive as well as some of the strongest and most skilled warriors. Even if no one else fights, this group could probably break into the palace and take Ozai down as well as the other major leaders of the war effort."

"And to top it all off, we have a member of the royal family who's actually got his head on straight to put on the throne," Zuko was startled at the implication on several levels, but Shi-Zen wasn't done speaking, "If this isn't the best chances to not only get my family out of that prison, but to end the war, then there really isn't any hope, ever."

"Something I've learned while traveling, something that's proven by just this... is that no matter how bad life may seem, it will always get better eventually. Even if there's no hope, to go on, and try to make things better, because to do anything else is to just give up." The earthbender took a deep calming breath, and took another small sip of his soup, still tense from his outburst. Immediately, his face relaxed some, and Shi-Zen began to eat his now cooled soup.

This left everyone else gaping at the sandbender, even Zak, who hadn't heard such an emotional side of the story before.

When Aang tried to sputter out some sort of apology, Shi-Zen sighed and sent a mild glare in his direction making the Avatar close his mouth.

Shi-Zen sighed and forced himself to relax before speaking, "Look... it's not that big of a deal, just..." he trailed off and sighed again, "We need to get some work done tomorrow."

"O-Oh, right!" and with that, the tension that had built so quickly, disappeared as Aang started to think of the things he had seen Shi-Zen do just in the fight with Toph, "What are we going to learn first?! That sand blast thing? Or maybe that weird trick where you just made the rock explode?! Ooh! What about that thing... where..." Aang finally noticed Shi-Zen's raised eyebrow and curious expression, "Oh... I'll just, shut up now..."

With a roll of his eyes, the sandbender explained, "When I said we, I didn't mean just you and me. I meant all of the benders."

This got him some curious looks.

So he addressed them all, "What I'm going to teach tomorrow can help anyone who bends, so I'm asking that all the benders here join me for a impropteau training session tomorrow before dinner."

When Sokka started to roll his eyes, Shi-Zen's own snapped over to him, and he asked mischievously, "What's the problem? That I'm being vague or that it's prejudiced against non-benders?"

Somewhat taken aback at being called out, he sputtered for just a second before collecting himself and going on the attack, "Both actually, what do you have to say about that?"

Which promptly got thrown right back at him, "That if I tried to even summarize the lesson now, I would have to go into the whole lesson. And I'm asking that all benders be there, I'm not asking non-benders to leave or anything, it's just not as big a deal if they attend or not."

"Well... we... we still don't trust you entirely-!"

"Which is partially why I'm asking most of the group to be there instead of teaching it to people one at a time, _and_ offering the entire group a chance to attend," the sandbender jerked his head at Toph, "And Agni bless, I could barely tie with her, how much of a chance would I stand against all of you?"

Sokka glared at him sullenly, "I hate you."

Obviously trying to contain his mirth, Shi-Zen gave his verbal opponent a wide smile, "Nah, you're just a sore loser."

When the warrior of the water-tribe gave the sandbender an even more sullen look, confirming what he had said, chuckles, giggles, and various other sounds of amusement broke out across the group. And not long after, most everyone had returned to eating.

Zak was one of those who didn't, who was looking at his friend curiously, "Is it the lesson I'm thinking of?"

"It _is_ the first one."

"Hmph... you _can't_ summarize that can you... eh," the waterbender shrugged and returned to his soup.

Katara's brow was furrowed, and she was the only one who had yet to return to her food. And after a minute she looked up, "Shi-Zen? Are you sure we should train as one big group? I mean," she sent a split-second glare past the two twelve-year olds beside her, "There really isn't any training that can encompass complete opposites and teach everyone equally."

A smile spread across the sandbenders face, "That's pretty much the point."

"Huh?"

"You'll see if you go."

Katara let out a resigned sigh.

* * *

A.N.): Okay, I'm not entirely sure I'm happy with this chapter, but it'll have to do. And for those of you who are waiting with baited breath for the next chapter of The Wounded Hero and cursing me for not having that instead of this... well, I'm sorry. It's just not coming out when I try and write it, and I won't post something that's absolute crap and I know it. When I can get something legible to go onto the screen, I'll post it, but till then, you're just going to have to wait.

And for all of those people who have reviewed this story: Thank you a whole lot!

Any constuctive criticism is greatly appreciated!


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